This Can't be Happening
by bballnerd09
Summary: "Come on, Quinn! You know something's wrong! She never acts like this." When Santana's mom walks out on her and her father, what will the consequences be? Why is Santana suddenly so jumpy? Brittany notices, but is it already too late? TriggerWarning:abuse
1. Chapter 1

**Hey peoples! This is my first glee story, so dont hate if it sucks! Im not really sure where i got the idea for this story, but its kinda dark...**

It was happening again. She didn't know if it was an old piece of clothes or even a piece of paper with _her _name on it that had made him remember this time. All she knew was that she wished that she could be anywhere but here. But the only escape she had was into her mind. As hard as she tried to forget about the pain that was shooting through her body, she couldn't. The blows were just too hard this time. Her body ached and so did her heart to know that there was nothing that she could do to stop him. She knew this would make her hurt more, but she couldn't help it. She had to try at least. In a whisper, she said, "Papí, please. Stop."

He looked down at her and scoffed, "Now why would I do that? This is your fault. It's your fault that she left. You're a worthless little bitch. She didn't want to be around you anymore. Hell, who would?" He kicked her in the side for the final time, satisfied that his daughter had gotten his message. Turning on his heel, he walked away and into his room. As he was about to close the door, he turned and looked at his daughter, crumpled into a heap on the floor, and said with a sickly smile on his face, "Goodnight, mija."

As the door slammed behind him, Santana felt herself relax for the first time in what felt like forever. She knew that he was done for the night; therefore, she would be able to sleep. Trying as hard as she could to ignore the immense amount of pain in her abdomen and just about everywhere else on her body, she crawled slowly to her bed. Carefully pulling herself up, she gingerly lifted up her shirt to see her stomach; there where already dark purple bruises forming there. "Shit," she cursed to herself. Letting the shirt fall, she looked at her arms. They were littered with dark blue and purple bruises from where her father had grabbed her and thrown her into her room earlier that night.

Sighing, Santana pushed herself onto her bed as she started to think about the life she had before everything went to hell. Her mom was still here. Her dad didn't beat the shit out of her almost every night. She was best friends with Brittany. Even though she acted like she didn't care about school, she still had straight A's. She was still a bitch, but had started to act civil towards the rest of the glee club. But then, her mom just left. There wasn't any reason or warning. She just packed up all of her things, got in her car and left her husband and daughter behind.

Santana's father had been devastated. He would drink until he could barely stand. Santana tried to stay out of his way when this happened, but sometimes she just couldn't. One night, she came down stairs from her room because she was going to a party at Puck's house. The glee club had just won Regionals, so he had decided that it was cause for a good, alcohol induced celebration.

As she walked down the stairs as quietly as she possibly could, her phone slipped out of her hand and down the carpeted steps. Silently cursing herself for her stupidity of not sticking it in her pocket, she descended the rest of the stairs, only to find her father at the bottom.

"Where do you think you're going?" he growled at her. It was clear that he had had his fair share of drinks just from the way his words had slurred together. He looked angry, as if Santana had challenged him.

Santana was quiet for a moment, thinking of a lie. However, that moment was too long for her father's liking. "I asked you a question! Where do you think you are going?" Santana could almost see the anger radiating off of her father as he screamed at her.

She flinched at his angry tone. "I, uh, Quinn's having a, uh, girls' night. With all of the girls from glee," Santana stuttered as she told her father the unconvincing lie. She knew this wasn't going to end well. He never liked it when she lied, but now his disappointment that was originally there was replaced by anger.

Her father took a step towards her, "You're lying," he said in a dangerously low voice. His hand clenched into a fist and started to shake. Santana took a step backwards, trying to put as much distance between her and her father as possible. As her back hit the wall, her father repeated, "Where do you think you're going?" This time when it was asked, it was threatening. As if he was daring her to move any more away from him. He stopped walking when he was an arm's length away from Santana.

Santana could see the veins sticking out of his neck and could hear his heavy breathing. His face was a bright red, but she couldn't figure out if it was from the alcohol or something else. Never before had she seen her father so angry. Sure, she had seen him throw a few plates around before when he had first realized that his wife had left him, but this was an entirely new level of anger. This was the "breaking furniture, smashing down doors, shattering windows" angry. Honestly, Santana was terrified.

"You know what I think? I think that you're going to go get drunk and go be the little slut that you are. You are a worthless piece of shit," he said to her, malice and fury dripping from his words. "That's why she left. She couldn't stand to be around you any longer. This is all. Your. Fault." He glared at Santana as if she were the scum of the earth and back handed her hard, sending her crashing into the stairs next to her.

She gasped in pain as her side crashed into the stairs. Bringing her hand up to her stinging cheek, she looked up at her father. There was no remorse or guilt on his features. Only hatred for the person he called his daughter. Santana could feel tears pricking her eyes, either from physical pain or the heart break she just endured from her father's words. Was that really what he thought of her? She couldn't bear to think that these words had just left the man that she had idolized when she was younger. The man who had gone to every one of her cheerleading competitions. Who had helped her learn to read music when she had joined glee. Who had hugged her after the New Directions lost at Regionals last year. Who had told her that she didn't need to get a boob-job to be beautiful. Who had told her she was perfect. Who had told her that she was loved. But now? Now he hated everything about her.

As she started to cry, she felt a hand under her arm, pulling her up again. Looking up at her father, the only things Santana could see in his eyes were fury and hatred. Quickly she closed her own, hoping that this was all a dream and that she would wake up at any moment. _This can't be happening. Please don't be happening, _she pleaded to herself. It felt as though everything was crashing down around her.

This small action sent even more waves of fury through her father. Once Santana was standing again, her father didn't hesitate to punch her in the stomach with so much force, that she was left gasping for air. Satisfied with his result, he punched her again. And again. And again. Until he lost count, and Santana was a crumpled heap on the floor. He looked down at the mass at his feet and spat, "You are such a disappointment," Kneeling down closer to his daughter, who was moaning softly in pain on the floor, he said in a dangerous voice, "If you tell anyone about this, you _will _be sorry. You will wish you had never been born." Slowly he stood up and walked down the hall back to his drink.

Santana didn't think that she had ever been in this much pain before. Her insides felt like they were on fire and her face was still stinging. She could already feel the bruises forming under her shirt. Slowly, she lifted her head up to see if her father was gone. The slight movement made her head spin. _Oh shit_, she internally moaned in pain.

It was highly unlikely that she would be able to stand up, let alone get back up the stairs and back into the safety her room. _I have to at least try. I can't just lay here for him to come back_, she thought to herself. She grabbed blindly for her phone with her left hand as she gripped the second step with her right and tried to push herself up on it. Her abdomen screamed in protest, but she did the best she could to ignore it. Gripping the railing, she half walked, half crawled up the stairs. At every step, she thought that she was going to fall back down.

Finally she reached the top of the stairs. Her bedroom door was within sight now. _Come on, Santana! Move! _Leaning heavily on the wall, she walked over to her bedroom. Carefully, she turned the handle and leaned against the door frame for support. Standing up as straight as she could, she walked to the desk close to her door, but not before closing and locking her door. _Thank God, _she thought as she leaned on her desk for support. Her head was spinning so much that she was starting to get nauseous. Her chest hurt every time she took a breath. Taking that final step and softly landing on her bed, she let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. Whether it was from pain or sheer exhaustion, she was asleep almost immediately. Either way, she didn't notice her phone vibrate as she received a text from her best friend.

**Britt (9:47 PM)**

**-where r u? i thot u left a half hour** **ago? im getting worried…**

**What did you think? R&R! if you review, you'll be my favorite person ever! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Omg thank you guys so much for all the reviews and favs and stuff! lol i opened my inbox this morning and had like 30 emails. I totally forgot to tell everyone this in the last chapter, but this takes place around Original Song. Brittany is still dating Artie. I've got Santana dating Sam because I'm not really sure what episode she breaks up with him, but i know it's before Born this Way, you know, because of Karofsky. I don't think they ever showed when they broke up...anyway, well, hope you enjoy!**

_Ugh. Why the hell_is it so damn_bright in here? _**[A/N: ok, the reason theres a dash between the swears and the word next to it is because my computer's stupid and automatically bleeps out curse words. This is my loophole. Sorry.] **Santana thought groggily. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She was greeted by a blinding amount of sunlight shining in through her bedroom window and a dull ache in her stomach. _What the hell_happened last night? _Obviously, she was in her room, but she honestly had no idea what had happened the night before or why her stomach was hurting.

Her eyes squinted as she slowly started to sit up from her bed, only to be stopped as a wave of pain shot through her abdomen. It was then that she remembered the events of the previous night. How she had come down the stairs, only to be greeted by her extremely strong, drunk father. How he had called her a worthless piece of shit_and said it was her fault that her mother had left. How he had beaten the living shit_out of her and then just left her there, at the bottom of the stairs.

To be honest, Santana wasn't sure what hurt her more; the punches to her stomach or the words said directly before. Her father had always been so kind and loving; how had that changed so much in the course of two weeks? The only thing that Santana had seen in her father's eyes the night before were hatred and anger. Of course, she understood that he would be angry that his wife just left him for no apparent reason, but that did not give him an excuse to beat his own daughter.

Santana was just as angry and upset that her mother had abandoned them. She needed her mother, especially after what she had been going through over the past two weeks; she had realized that she loved Brittany and had told her, only to be promptly turned down because of Wheels. The main thing that Santana needed at the moment was someone to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. She knew that her mom would do just that without pressuring her for answers. Santana loved her mom, but apparently that wasn't good enough.

Without realizing it, she felt the tears start to slide down her face and onto her lap as she sat on the edge of her bed. Looking down, she saw her phone lying next to her pillow. She reached over and turned it on.

**12 New Messages: Britt (5), Sam (4), Quinn (2), Puck (1)**

**7 Missed Calls: Britt (4), Sam (3)**

**3 New Voicemails: Britt (2), Sam (1)**

_Damn_it. I never called any of them last night. I told them that I would be there. _Unlocking her phone, she scrolled down to Brittany's name on her contacts' list. Her finger hovered over the name for a moment, trying to figure out what to tell Brittany. She couldn't tell her what happened. Brittany would freak out and then try to come over. No, there was no way Brittany was coming to Santana's house with her father around. There was no way Santana was going to risk Brittany getting hurt by her father.

**-sorry B. i fell asleep while watchin tv last night. guess i didnt hear my phone ring. i was pretty tired. –S.**

Santana nodded her head in approval of the rather convincing lie. She just hoped that Brittany would buy it. Knowing Brittany, she would. But Santana couldn't help but feel guilty for lying to her best friend. That is, until she thought about what would happen if she did tell Brittany what had happened. A shudder ran through her body as she thought of Brittany being hurt. No, she couldn't let that happen.

Slowly, she stood up off of her bed. The pain in her stomach was less than it had been the night before, but it still hurt quite a bit. At least now she was able to stand without needing to hold onto something for support. Gingerly, Santana reached down and pulled her shirt up slightly, just enough to see her lower stomach. She muttered a curse as she saw that the exposed skin was littered with dark purple bruises. Letting her shirt fall, she made her way to the bathroom.

As Santana looked at the reflection in the mirror, she wasn't entirely shocked to see that she looked terrible. She looked better than she felt, anyway. There was a faint blue bruise on her left cheek. Her hair was a complete mess and the make-up on her face was ruined. The dark tank top she was wearing revealed a large, handprint shaped bruise on her upper left arm.

Santana gazed at her reflection, momentarily thinking, _What the hell_am I going to do now?_

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><p>Brittany was extremely worried now. She had already sent Santana five texts, called her four times and left two voicemails, but she still hadn't gotten any sort of reply. Santana rarely went long periods of time without at least texting Brittany unless something was wrong. Also, she had said that she was going to be at Puck's party last night, but had never showed up or let anyone know otherwise.<p>

The blonde had waited for Santana to show up until everyone had either left or passed out. By that time, it was already almost two o'clock in the morning. She had thought about going over to Santana's house to see if she was there, but decided against it when Rachel almost puked on her and she offered to give her a ride (she was the designated driver.) But now that it was the morning and she had no drunken divas to attend to, she considered going to check on Santana.

Checking her phone one last time to see if there were any messages from Santana (there weren't), Brittany climbed out of bed and started to get dressed. Twenty minutes later and several tries later, she finally was able to put her shoes on the right feet. She smiled in triumph and went to grab her purse from beside her bed. Her smile disappeared when she heard the familiar buzz of her phone receiving a text. Turning around, she dropped her purse and picked up the phone from her bed.

**Santana (8:34 AM)**

**- sorry B. i fell asleep while watchin tv last night. guess i didnt hear my phone ring. i was pretty tired. –S.**

Brittany didn't think she had ever felt more relieved in her life. Santana was fine; she had just fallen asleep early. Quickly, Brittany typed out her reply.

**-o ok :) i was worried but ur ok, so im not anymore. can i come over? –B.**

She sat back down on her bed, waiting for Santana to text her back. _I don't know if she told any of the others. They're probably worried too. Quinn was a little worried last night, I think, _Brittany thought to herself. Just in case, she typed out a quick text to Quinn, Puck and Sam, all of whom had noticed Santana's absence from the party last night. She doubted any of them would be awake to see it, considering Puck had passed out half way through spin the bottle last night, Sam never got out of bed before eleven on the weekends, and Quinn was either still asleep or just now starting to nurse the horrible hangover that was about to come her way. Sam barely drank anything at the party the previous night, also worried about Santana, so he would be spared from the vicious hangover that was about to loom over the rest of the glee members' heads.

Brittany was pulled from her thoughts by the faint buzz of her cell phone. She flicked it open and read the message.

**Santana (8:48 AM)**

**-no, my dad's still asleep-S.**

The blonde frowned. Santana's father being asleep had never stopped Brittany from coming over before. What was it different now?

**-um, ok…do u wanna meet up at lima bean?-B.**

There was no way Santana could turn down coffee from Lima Bean. She practically lived and breathed that stuff.

**Santana (8:51 AM)**

**-no ive got a lot of homework to do. c u 2morrow.-S.**

What? Santana never did her homework, at least not on the weekends. She would get it done at school, during class or her free periods and finish it when she got home from school on Friday afternoons so that she didn't have to deal with it for the rest of the weekend. Brittany knew this because she was always with Santana, or at least she had been up until the past two weeks. Santana had been keeping her distance from Brittany ever since they had talked at Brittany's locker after they sang Landslide with Ms. Holiday. Brittany knew why, but that didn't make it any easier. She missed her best friend.

**-o. ok. c u 2morrow-B.**

**What did you guys think? Any suggestions or comments or corrections? Anything? Well, R&R please! I'll try to update every day, but no promises though. Sorry about the swear-slash thing. My computer is insanely stupid and annoying. Anyway, I hope you liked it. Review, and you get more Brittana ;) BRITTANA FTW! lol **


	3. Chapter 3

**Hola peeps! Ok, so this chapter's got a little bit of Quinntana friendship, but not really though. There's also a some Brittana, but I don't think it's like an insane amount though. btw, I fixed the problem with the swears and my stupid computer, so loopholes are no longer necessary lol ;) Anyway, hope you enjoy!**

It was Monday morning and Santana was sitting in her car outside of McKinley. School didn't start for another hour, but she had to get out of the house her father currently inhabited. After the previous night, she didn't think she ever wanted to go back into that house. But she knew she didn't have a choice.

Last night, Santana had been sitting in her room, as she had been doing all day, and her father burst, screaming at her. Her mind had gone blank. She had no idea what he had been saying to her, but she could tell what was about to happen. Jumping off her bed, she backed into the wall, attempting to put any distance that she could in between her and her father. He was still screaming at her, but nothing was registering in her brain. It seemed as though time had slowed town as she stood paralyzed with fear against her bedroom wall. As much as she tried to scream or plead for her father to leave her alone, nothing came out of her mouth.

Apparently, her silence was not what her father had wanted to hear. His fist came crashing into Santana's face. She cried out in pain as she slid to the floor. All she wanted was for her father to leave her alone. Closing her eyes, she tried to block him out as best she could by thinking about anything other than what was going on. About glee club and how they had just won regionals. About Brittany and how she moved when she danced. About anything but her father.

Santana wasn't really sure when she had blacked out, but she when she woke up, her father was gone and she could see the orange glow from the street lamps outside of her window. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she looked at the time. 2:47 AM. She let her head fall back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.

The next time she woke up, the sun was barely up and her alarm was blaring from across her room. _Shit. School. _Santana's alarm had been set for 5:30 ever since she had joined the Cheerios (Sylvester had demanded that every Cheerio had to be at those crazy-ass six o'clock practices or they were off the squad.) But even though she had quit over a month ago, Santana still hadn't bothered to change it. Every time the alarm went off, she would just hit snooze until she got tired of hearing the annoying blaring.

Walking to her bathroom, after turning off the extremely annoying alarm clock, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. There was a rather large bruise under her right eye and both of her arms had large, handprint shaped bruises on them.

An hour and an extremely large amount of cover-up later, Santana was sitting in her car in front of McKinley in a Cheerios sweatshirt and jeans. She hadn't bothered trying to find anything better to wear. She just needed to get out of that house as fast as she could before her father woke up.

The parking lot was completely empty except for a few of cars, probably owned by those crazy teachers who came into school before the sun was even up or who never even left. Santana got out of her car, hastily throwing her backpack over her shoulder.

She really wanted to talk to someone, but she knew she couldn't. There was no way in hell she was telling Brittany what happened. She loved Brittany too much to even let there be a possibility of her getting hurt by her father. Yeah, she knew it sounded cheesy, but it was true. She couldn't tell Mr. Shue or Ms. Pillsbury. They would call the cops or something, and honestly, where did Santana have to go if her father was in prison? She didn't have any aunts or uncles and her grandparents had all died years ago.

Santana was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't even bother to look before she turned around the corner. She collided with someone making her trip. The person grabbed her arm, trying to keep her from falling. Santana winced as pain shot through her bruised arm and pulled away hastily. Looking up, she was about to go off on the person for not watching where they were going. That is, until she realized who the person actually was.

"Santana?" Quinn asked, surprised that anyone, let alone Santana, was at school this early. "What are you doing here? School doesn't start for another hour." She stated with raised eyebrows. But then again, Santana could have asked her the same question. Quinn's car had broken down last night and her mom offered to take her to school. But her mom's shift started at 7:30, so she had to drop Quinn off early. It wasn't a problem because Quinn had to work on a project for her history class.

For the first time, she took in the Latina's appearance; her hair looked as though she had just hastily brushed it and pulled it into a low, loose ponytail. She was wearing an old Cheerios sweatshirt from Nationals last year, a faded pair of jeans and a pair of old black Converse. But what surprised Quinn the most was that she wasn't wearing her usual bitch face. Instead, she actually looked like she was deep in thought and-no. There was no way. Did Santana look a little bit _scared_? That was the last thing that Quinn had expected to see on Santana's face. Santana didn't get scared. At least, as far as Quinn knew. But the look was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Santana didn't know what to say. She hadn't planned on running into anyone this early. All she wanted to do was go and sit in the choir room or the auditorium for a little bit before school started. If she had a choice, she would just stay in the auditorium all day until school was over. The last thing she wanted to do was explain to the rest of the glee club why she never showed up at the party.

"Uh, I was just…" Santana paused, thinking of what to say. "I, uh, I went for a run this morning and I just decided to come in early. You know, just to finish up some homework." She cursed herself at how stupid the lie sounded, even to her.

Quinn nodded and raised her eyebrow, unconvinced, "Uh huh. Now, why are you _really_ here?" She may not have been on the best terms with Santana, but Quinn knew her. But more importantly, she knew when she was lying. "And what's up with your arm?" she asked, noticing how Santana had winced and pulled away after Quinn had grabbed her arm.

Santana was panicking. There was no way she could tell Quinn. Quinn would tell Brittany, and Santana really didn't want all her shit to hit the fan. "Why the hell do you care, Fabray?" Santana hissed angrily. "Mind you own damn business." She shot a glare at Quinn as she walked past her towards the auditorium.

"Whatever," Quinn muttered to herself. She made a mental note to talk to Brittany the next time she saw her and ask what the hell was up with Santana. Sure, she was usually a bitch, but there was something different this time. She seemed almost defensive, as if there was something she really didn't want Quinn to know. _I'll keep an eye out for anything weird._

_Damn it! She's gonna know that something's up now,_ Santana thought to herself as she walked away from Quinn. It wasn't that she didn't trust Quinn; it was that she knew Quinn would tell Brittany. Then it hit her: Brittany would know that something was wrong the minute she looked at Santana. She knew her too well not to. Santana brushed the though away. _I'll figure it out later. _Finally, she reached the double doors to the auditorium.

This place and the choir room were her safe havens in the living hell that she called William McKinley High School. But Berry was always in the choir room during free periods, so Santana always went to the auditorium when she wanted to be alone. No one knew this but Brittany. If Santana went missing for a few hours, Brittany knew that she was either in the auditorium or had just left school.

The Latina pushed open the door and walked to her usual spot in the far back corner of the auditorium. From there, she had a perfect vantage point of the entire auditorium. Sitting down and taking a deep breath, she let the mask fall. She could feel the silent tears beginning to build up in her eyes, threatening to fall every second. Santana closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, letting to wetness fall down her face. _What did I do to make him hate me so much? Maybe it really is my fault she's gone. It's not like I'm the perfect daughter she always wanted. _

Thoughts of her mother filled her mind. She had wanted to be a writer when she was younger, but two years into college, she got pregnant with Santana and dropped out. Santana's father was in his third year of medical school at the time. They got married and moved to Lima as soon as he finished medical school. He got a job at the local hospital in the ER. When Santana had turned six and started school, her mother went back to school to finish her degree. She got a job at travel agency and from then on, had always been insanely busy. Santana had a full time baby sitter until she was eleven and then started walking to and from school. She became entirely self-reliant. Life had been the same with them ever since. Until now.

The warning bell signaling first period rang, pulling Santana from her thoughts. Had it already been an hour since she entered the auditorium? It felt like minutes. Maybe that was why she was able to stay there all day. Reluctantly, she sat up and started to rummage through her bag. After a couple of minutes and an extreme battle with a pair of headphones, Santana pulled out the compact mirror and cover-up she was looking for. She fixed her make-up, ensuring that the bruise on her face was unnoticeable and threw her things in her bag.

Wincing slightly as she stood up, she grabbed her bag and made her way to the door and the crowded hallways that lay behind it. Ever so carefully, her face drained of emotion. Pushing open the door, Santana braced herself for the battle she knew that had just begun.

**What did you guys think? This chapter was a little bit harder to write just because of the Santana/Quinn interaction and the (attempted) backstory of Santana's family. I'm gonna try to put in a little more Quinntana, but I think I'm mainly going to focus on Brittana for now. The next couple of chapters are probably going to have some Brittana in them, but it's a work in progress, so stay tuned. I'm thinking about putting a little bit of Karofsky in here, but him before Born This Way, so he's still an asshole. Tell me what you think about Karofsky making an appearance or just about the story in general. Thanks for reading! R&R!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Yo peeps! So this is a slightly longer chapter. I considered breaking this one up into two different ones, but decided against it. This one actually has a fair amount of Brittana, at least I think it does. There's some Quinntana friendship, sorta, and Brittany/Quinn friendship. Artie's in the chapter (ugh...I really don't like Artie...)...whatever. I think in this chapter, the story line might actually progress...omg...anyway, hope you enjoy!**

It had been almost two weeks since Santana had missed the Regionals party. Unknown to Brittany, it had also been almost two since the first time Santana's father had beaten her. Since that night, things had only gotten worse; almost every night, Santana was being hit, either by physical blows or verbal ones. But her father knew where to hit, as to not cause any damage that might require a trip to the hospital or any visible marks on his daughter's face that might draw attention.

Every day, Santana lost a little more of the hope that she had held onto so tightly. The hope that someone would notice something was so very wrong. That someone cared enough to notice. But, still there was nothing. So Santana sat there, against the hard wall of her bedroom. There was nothing left for her to get up for. She was finally broken.

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><p>It was a week and a half after the Regionals party that Brittany noticed that something was wrong. At first, she had just thought that Santana was still upset about the conversation that the two had at Brittany's locker. But now, she knew that there was more to it than that.<p>

Santana had been unusually quiet for the past couple of weeks, but not the "I-have-nothing-to-say" quiet. It was the "suffer-in-silence" quiet that Brittany knew Santana did all too well. She never talked in glee club anymore, not even to insult Rachel's wardrobe or comment on Sam's mouth. The rest of the glee club actually like the quiet Santana. They all assumed that someone had finally set her straight and made her stop being such a bitch. That is, except for Quinn. Quinn had noticed the difference in Santana's silence, much like Brittany did, but decided not to say anything.

Brittany noticed Santana's extreme change in wardrobe: almost every day, Santana would be wearing some sort of baggy hoodie and looser fitting jeans with a pair on black converse. She had been slushied numerous times because of this by the very Cheerios she used to be a part of. What was even stranger was that Santana never fought back to the slushies anymore. Her social status plummeted, but it was as if she didn't even care. She would just walk to the nearest bathroom, eyes trained on the floor. Brittany had offered to help, but Santana never wanted help.

For large amounts of time during the day, no one seemed to be able to find Santana, but then again, no one really looked. She would just slip out of the flow of traffic at McKinley, only to slip back in an hour or so later. Not once did Brittany see Santana at lunch for a week and a half. She didn't know if it was because she was eating somewhere else, busy, or just not eating at all. What she did know was that even under all the baggy clothes, Santana was getting thin. Dangerously thin. Brittany could see the way the clothes had started to droop around Santana's small frame.

There was no way to hide how tired Santana always looked. It was as though she hadn't gotten a proper nights rest in a long time. On top of everything else, she was always looking over her shoulder or tapping her foot anxiously. If someone tried to get her attention or tapped her, she would jump and a look of panic would pass over her face for a split second. But as soon as it was there, it was gone.

This was not normal. For anyone, but especially for Santana. Brittany had just brushed it off at first, assuming that she was imagining it, but after a while it was just too much to ignore. Something was very, very wrong. The blonde could see her best friend slowly fading away before her eyes.

She hadn't had a chance to ask Santana about her sudden change in behavior; they hadn't spoken more than ten words to each other in a long time. Santana never returned Brittany's texts or phone calls and the only times they were in the same room as each other were in glee club and one other class. Artie always insisted that Brittany sit next to him during glee club, and they had assigned seats on the other side of the room from each other in the other class. Santana was always the first one out of the classroom, as if she were intentionally avoiding a very frustrated Brittany. She needed answers, and she needed them now.

* * *

><p>Quinn was standing at her locker, attempting to shove her math and science textbooks in at the same time. So far, she wasn't having any luck. Giving up, she decided to use the ounce of patience that she had and put them in one at a time. Satisfied with her work, she closed her locker. She turned to walk to her next class, and saw a very familiar head of blonde hair walking towards her. "Hey Quinn," Brittany said softly.<p>

"Hey B," Quinn said, confused. Brittany never called her Quinn. "What's up?"

"Have you noticed anything different about Santana lately? Has she talked to you or anything?" The question caught Quinn off guard.

"What?"

"Santana. Have you talked to her or noticed anything off about her?" Brittany repeated herself. Her eyebrows were furrowed. She looked worried. "I'm just asking because I haven't talked to her in a while and I think something's wrong. Like, really wrong."

Quinn couldn't lie to Brittany, "No, I haven't talked to her. I noticed too. I honestly have no idea what's going on. It's probably nothing though, Britt. She's probably just looking for attention. Give it a few more days and she'll be back to normal." She turned to leave, only to be stopped by Brittany grabbing her arm.

"Come on, Quinn! You know something's wrong! She never acts like this. Even when she's looking for attention. I honestly think that there's something really, really bad going on. I'm worried about her." Brittany looked scared, but it wasn't the same type scared that Quinn had seen on Santana that Monday morning after Regionals.

Quinn sighed, "Brittany, just let it go. She's probably fine."

"No Quinn! You don't understand!" Brittany yelled, making Quinn jump. Brittany never yelled. Ever. "Quinn, Santana hasn't had a conversation longer than five minutes with anyone in almost two weeks. Haven't you noticed how she is just quiet all the time?" Quinn could sense the urgency in Brittany's voice. It sounded so out of place on the usually care free dancer. She nodded. "She always looks so nervous and jumpy, even in the middle of class. That's not normal, Quinn!"

"Her clothes, Q. She's wearing clothes that two months ago, if she had seen anyone else wearing, she would constantly be making fun of them. Not to mention that they're practically falling off of her! She's getting too thin. When was the last time you saw her eat _anything_?"

Quinn opened her mouth, but Brittany already knew what she was going to say, "No, Quinn. I don't think it's like that. I've seen Santana stop eating to do that and it doesn't look like this. When she does, she tries to make a show of it. Now it's as if all she wants is to disappear."

Quinn's eyes widened at Brittany's statement, "You don't think that she's…" There was no need to finish the question. They both knew what Quinn meant. Brittany felt tears come to her eyes at the thought.

"No...she wouldn't..." Brittany felt herself slide down the row of lockers that she was leaning against. The flow of students in the hallway had slowed so that there were only a couple of lone students still in the hallway. Brittany closed her eyes and felt the tears slowly start to trickle down her face. "Quinn, we have to talk to her. I…I can't lose her..."

She felt Quinn rubbing a comforting hand on her back. "I know, B…I know…" If only they knew how wrong they were…

* * *

><p>Artie had started to become insanely clingy. He would walk (roll?) Brittany to class and meet her up afterwards right outside the classroom every day. Almost every day, he asked her if she wanted to hang out after school. She didn't want to tell him to leave her alone, but it was starting to get really annoying. He was sweet and everything, but Brittany wasn't really sure how much more Angry Birds talk she could take.<p>

It was getting towards the end of March and Brittany and Artie were eating lunch outside in the courtyard. It was beautiful outside; the sun was out and there was a slight breeze that felt really good. Artie kept saying that spring was right around the corner, but Brittany looked around every single one and she couldn't find it. _Whatever. I think Artie was just messing with me,_ she thought as she bit into her sandwich.

"So, I was thinking that you could come over to my house after school. I could teach you how to play Call of Duty," Artie said hopefully.

Brittany kept her eyes trained on her food and said, "I can't. I've gotta go and talk to Santana after school," As she said that, she looked up and noticed the emotions change on Artie's face from disappointed, to confused, to angry. "What's wrong?"

Artie scoffed, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe that you're blowing me off just so you can talk to _Santana_," He scowled as Santana's name left his mouth, as if he had just said the most horrible thing in the world.

Brittany just looked at him in confusion, "What are you talking about? I'm not blowing you off, I'm just going to talk to one of my friends," she honestly had no idea why Artie was getting mad at her for wanting to talk to Santana.

Rolling his eyes, Artie said, "Really? You're just gonna talk?"

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about, Artie." Brittany was extremely confused now. She could tell that Artie was really mad now, but didn't know why.

"Of course you don't," Artie mumbled under his breath. "If you're gonna do it, just go ahead and do it now."

The dancer was getting annoyed now. Artie was mad at her, but refused to tell her why. "If I'm gonna do what?" she said, with an edge to her voice. She was so sick of this.

"Break up with me. We all know that you'd rather be with _her _anyway."

Brittany didn't know what to say to that. Would she rather be with Santana than Artie? It didn't matter anyway. Santana refused to speak to her. "What is that supposed to mean?" her confusion from earlier had turned into anger.

"Don't act like you have no idea what's going on here. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. I heard what you said to her the other day. You know, you really should keep your voice down when you're cheating on me," Artie was full on glaring now.

Slowly, everything clicked. That was why Artie was always trying to be around Brittany; he didn't want her to have an opportunity to talk to Santana. "Okay, first of all, that was a private conversation. You had no right to eavesdrop on it," she saw Artie begin to open his mouth. "Don't speak. Second, I wasn't cheating on you. If you actually knew what went on there, you would know that." Brittany was fuming. How dare he say that?

"I know that you said you loved her. In my book, telling another person that you love them while you're dating someone else is called cheating."

Brittany couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did he not hear the last part of the conversation? "Did you just happen to miss what I said directly after that? I told her that I couldn't be with her because I was dating you. I broke her heart, you know that? I told her that I loved you too and I couldn't break up with you."

"Yeah, you _couldn't _break up with me. Not: you _wouldn't _break up with me," Sensing Brittany's confusion, he elaborated, "You _couldn't _break up with me because it wouldn't be right to just dump me. You didn't say that you _wouldn't _break up with me because you loved me," Artie paused for a moment. "I knew that Santana had a history of stealing peoples' boyfriends, but I didn't know that she stole peoples' girlfriends, too."

Brittany was standing now. "Don't you dare say that!" she growled through gritted teeth. "Santana backed off. I haven't spoken to her in almost two weeks. Do you understand that?" Without waiting for a reply, she plowed on. "Have you noticed that Santana barely says two words to _anyone _anymore? She doesn't talk to anyone, let alone me. She's wearing clothes that are four sizes too big for her. In the past two weeks, she's probably lost fifteen pounds! Every day, she disappears for hours! No one knows where she goes! She looks like she hasn't slept in weeks and constantly looks like she is waiting for someone is to jump out and stab her! I wanted to talk to her to figure out what is going on! I want to know what's wrong!" She finished her rant, breathing heavily. Her emotions were a confusing mess. She wasn't sure if she wanted to punch Artie in the face or cry.

Looking down at Artie, she noticed that the emotion on his face had changed. He looked guilty. "Brittany, I didn't-,"

"I'm really worried about her, Artie! She's still my best friend! Do you not get that?" Brittany could tell where this conversation was going. "No one else has seemed to notice that there is something seriously wrong here. I'm not going to talk to her because I want to cheat on you! I'm going to talk to her to make sure she isn't going to try and kill herself!" She hadn't meant to say it, but there was no way that she could stop it at this point.

Artie's eyes widened and his mouth fell open at Brittany's statement. No, there was no way that Santana would do that. Sure, she had been quiet for a while, but he had thought she had finally just stopped being a bitch for once. But then he thought about everything else Brittany had said: the quietness, her clothes, how she disappears, the jumpiness, the weight loss. It all made sense. Realization crossed his face as he looked up at Brittany in horror. Her eyes were slowly filling with unshed tears. "Oh my God," he whispered. "Brittany-"

"Don't. Just don't," whispered Brittany, angrily. "I'm done. We're done." She grabbed her backpack and turned away from Artie, hoping that she would be able to talk to Santana before it was too late.

**What did you think? YAAAYYY! Good news and bad news. Bad news: Artie knows/doesn't know what's going on now. Well, he knows what Brittany thinks is going on...Sorry. Confusing. Good news: BARTIE IS DONE (at least in this story)! I have officially named this the Bartie Breakup. Yeah, i know it's not even remotely creative, but gimme a break. lol For those of you who actually like Bartie/Artie in general, I'm sorry, but hey, for Brittana to happen, Artie must be GONE. And I fully intend for Brittana to happen...mwahaha...lol ;)Besides, i just don't like Artie. Like, at all. anyways, next chapter is definately going to have Santana/Brittany interaction. Keep an eye out for Karofsky, he just might make an apearance...R&R! **

**Quick note: for those of you who want any type of Pezberry, sorry, but I'm not getting into another character interaction. Sorry Rachel fans/Pezberry shippers, its not gonna happen. Sorry. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Hola ppls. Ok, so I know I'm updating a little bit later into the day than I usually do, but I got up at 4 AM this morning, got on a plane at 8, and now im in...DISNEY WORLD! So this week, i might possibly miss a day of updating, but I'll try my hardest to update everyday, but by no means is that a promise. Ok, anyway, back to the thing you guys actually care about: the story. So, i forgot to tell you guys this last time, but Santana and Sam broke up somewhere in the 2 week time lapse which i also forgot to tell you guys about...sorry bout that btw. There's a Santana/Brittany interaction in this chapter, but it's not, like, insanely long though. There is quite a bit of Quinntana friendship though. Enjoy ppls!**

**BTW-My computer is being stupid AGAIN with the swearing crap, so the loophole is returning yet again. (aparently crap is a swear according to this...weird...)**

Brittany walked through the doors, back into in building. She couldn't believe what Artie had just said to her! He honestly thought that she was cheating on him just because she said that she was going to talk to Santana. Something was really wrong with Santana. Brittany could tell. She knew Santana like the back of her hand. Everything the girl did made sense to Brittany. That is, until now. Never before had Santana acted like this. Actually, Brittany didn't think she had ever seen _anyone_ act like that. It just wasn't normal.

She was going to get to the bottom of this. She needed to know what was wrong. Turning the corner, Brittany saw something move out of the corner of her eye. The door to the auditorium was swinging closed. Maybe she was imagining it, but she swore she saw a flash of dark hair. _No way, _thought Brittany, as she made a beeline for the auditorium door. _No, _she thought to herself. _I've gotta use another door. I've gotta see what she's doing in here. _

As fast as she could, she sprinted back the way she came until she reached another set of double doors. Quietly, she pushed one of them open and slipped through the small opening, silently thanking years of dancing that made her so graceful. Letting the door close silently, she turned around to look through the large auditorium. Her gaze stopped on the Latina sitting in the far back row, who had her eyes closed and was leaning back in her seat. Even from the other side of the auditorium, Brittany could tell that Santana was crying just by the way her chest moved as she took in a shaky breath.

Brittany slowly climbed the stairs leading to Santana. The last thing she wanted to do was scare her, so she tried to move as quietly as possible. When she was about fifteen rows away from Santana, she opened her mouth to speak, "San?" she whispered. There was no response. "San?" Brittany repeated a little louder than before.

Santana's eyes shot open as she looked around in terror. _Please, no. He couldn't have found me here! _The thoughts were rushing through her head as her eyes scanned around the large room. She relaxed, but only slightly as she saw that the owner of the voice was not her father. However, the speaker was the last person she had expected to see here. "Britt..." Santana said in a mixture of a whisper and a croak. She hadn't talked to Brittany in two weeks. It was better that way. There was no way that Brittany could find out what was happening at Santana's house if they never spoke. But not talking to Brittany was probably one of the hardest things she had ever done.

"San, what are you doing here? Why are you crying?" Brittany asked softly. Santana could tell how worried she was. She felt a pang of guilt, knowing that she had caused the blonde to sound so troubled.

The brunette remained silent. It had been so long since she had heard gentle words, not filled with hatred and malice. The thought of someone caring about her seemed so foreign. It had only been two weeks, but it felt like a lifetime.

Brittany took a tentative step forwards when she didn't get a response, "Santana? San, what's wrong?" She saw Santana visibly flinch as she stepped forwards. Abruptly, she stopped. "It's just me." Confusion clouded her features when Santana didn't relax.

_No, no, no, no, no…she can't know!__She isn't supposed to find me! This isn't supposed to be happening! _Panic flashed across Santana's mind. She did the only thing she could: lie. "I'm fine," she stated curtly, however, the way her voice cracked proved otherwise.

Brittany raised a concerned eyebrow, "No you're not," It wasn't a question. "You're not fine, Santana. I don't know what happened, but whatever it was, it's made you so far from fine that you're barely even you anymore," She paused for a moment. "Please. I want to help."

"There's nothing you can do…" Santana whispered, barely audible. "There's nothing anyone can do…" her gaze was focused on the tightly woven carpet under her feet.

"What happened? I can help." Brittany was starting to get desperate.

"No you can't! No one can help, Brittany!" Santana unsuccessfully tried to yell through her tears. She needed Brittany to understand. "This can't be happening…" she said to herself. "Brittany, you have to leave. You're gonna get hurt. Please, Britt." Pleaded Santana, standing up to be at the same level as Brittany.

"I'm not leaving, Santana. I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on," Brittany said stubbornly.

" Damn_it, Brittany! I can't tell you! If I do, you're gonna get hurt and it's going to be my fault!" Santana said, exasperated. The Latina started to walk out of the auditorium, but was stopped when Brittany's voice pierced the silence.

"I broke up with Artie."

Santana turned to face Brittany, "I'm sorry," She whispered. "For everything."

Brittany felt her heart shatter with those words, "Santana…" but she was already gone. The tears that the dancer had held in throughout the entire conversation filled her eyes and began to streak down her face. That had probably been her last chance, and she blew it. She sank to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest as she leaned against one of the auditorium seats.

* * *

><p>Santana broke into a run as she exited the auditorium, although her severely bruised abdomen screamed in pain. She needed to get as far away from Brittany as she could. Only when she past the double doors leading into the gym, did she stop. Her arms wrapped around her midsection as she breathed heavily. God, it hurt so much! She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the pain would pass. Because of this, she didn't see Karofsky walking down the hallway, slushy in hand.<p>

* * *

><p>Quinn walked out of the library with her backpack slung over her shoulder. She had been trying to get some last minute studying in before her English test later that afternoon. Walking down the empty hallways and rounding a corner, she saw a scene unfold before her she really wished she could un-see.<p>

Santana was leaning against the wall, hands over her stomach, eyes shut. Karofsky was walking straight towards her, with a slushy in his hand. When he reached her, he thrust his arm forward, showering Santana in a red, sticky, freezing mess. She gasped in shock as the frozen drink hit her body.

"Sup, loser?" Karofsky sneered as he started to walk away.

" Fuck_off,_asshole," Santana muttered under her breath. She hadn't intended for him to hear her, but he did. He turned his head so quickly, it was a surprise he didn't get whiplash.

"What did you just say?" he asked, slowly walking back towards Santana, threateningly. "'Cuz I know you didn't say what I think you just said."

Santana unconsciously flattened herself against the fall, a movement she had become very accustomed to in the past two weeks. "I-I didn't say anything." She was barely able to keep her voice level as she said this. On several occasions, she had been in the exact same position, with the exact same words being spoken to her, only they had been spoken by her father.

Karofsky smirked, "That's what I thought. Cuz if you had said what I though you did, well then-" he raised his hand to smack the wall right next to Santana's head. She jumped violently. "-we would have a _very _big problem."

Santana just nodded, not trusting herself with words. The smirk that Karofsky wore grew even more smug as he pulled his hand down from the wall. "Watch yourself. We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you, now would we?" he said sarcastically. Turning around, he walked away from Santana, rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.

Once Karofsky was gone, Santana slid down the wall and onto the floor. She let out a strangled sob and buried her head in her knees.

_Oh my God_, thought Quinn, still hiding around the corner, watching Santana sob less than fifty feet away. _I have to tell Brittany. _She started to walk away to find the taller blonde, but stopped as she heard Santana let out another muffled cry. Changing her mind without really thinking about it, she turned rounded the corner and walked towards Santana. Brittany could wait. Santana couldn't. It broke her heart to see someone so strong look so broken. "Santana?" she asked, not wanting to frighten the brunette.

_Damn_it. Not again. Can't they just leave me alone? _Santana kept her head down as she wiped her eyes. Her tears had mixed in with the red slushy that was slowly sliding down her face. The red food coloring covered her hand, which she wiped on her jeans. She hoped that by ignoring Quinn, the blonde would just go away. However, it seemed to have the opposite effect. Quinn was moving closer to Santana.

Silently, Quinn kneeled down next to Santana and grabbed her hand. The brunette flinched, but Quinn didn't pull away. Instead, she gently squeezed her friend's hand, reassuring her that she was okay. "C'mon. Let's go get you cleaned up."

Santana nodded. She honestly didn't have the energy to fight with anyone anymore. She had nothing left. Whatever had been left was just destroyed by Karofsky. Despite the protest of her abdomen, she stood up with Quinn, who was still holding her now almost fragile looking hand. The Latina let Quinn lead her towards the bathroom.

As Quinn and Santana walked into the bathroom, the blonde finally let go of the hand she was holding. Walking over to the stalls, she looked to see if they were alone in the bathroom. When she was convinced that no one would overhear them talking, she turned to look at Santana, who was silently wiping her face with a paper towel.

Once again, Quinn grabbed Santana's hand and led her over to one of the sinks. She grabbed a chair that was always in one of the bathrooms for just this reason and instructed Santana to sit. Silently, she washed the sticky substance out of dark brown hair. As the red substance went down the drain of the sink, Quinn studied Santana's face. Her eyes were closed, but Quinn could tell how tired she looked. The make-up that had been hiding the dark circles under her eyes was gone. Her face looked unnaturally thin, to the point where it looked extremely unhealthy. When she looked closely, she saw a faded purple spot under Santana's left eye.

Suddenly, everything clicked. Her hands stilled in Santana's hair. She kneeled down in front of the Latina and asked softly, "Santana, who's been hitting you?"

Santana's eyes shot open in alarm. Quinn was looking at her, her eyes full of sadness, concern and something that resembled anger. She had figured it out. For a moment, Santana was glad that someone had figured it out, but then the panic set into her chest. If Quinn told anyone else, her father would find out. If her father found out, Santana was certain that his rage would not be contained, as she felt it had been the past couple of weeks. Well, as contained as it could get.

Her tears began to softly flow again. "I can't, Quinn. He's gonna find out, and then…" she whispered.

"San, if you tell me who he is, he won't hurt you anymore. It'll be over."

"It'll never be over." Santana stood up and made her way to the door. When her hand closed around the handle, she turned to Quinn and said, "Thank you."

As the door closed, the blonde muttered, "Crap," She pulled out her phone and quickly typed out a quick text.

**To: Brittany **

**We have a problem.**

This was worse than they had thought. Much worse.

**Whatcha think? So Britt's gonna find out what's wrong with Santana in the next chapter. Buuuuuut...Quinn and Santana still don't know who it is. Stay tuned for the next chapter. I think we're finally gonna get a bit of glee club action up in here ;) lol **

**So the Karofsky appearance probably didn't live up to your expectations just cuz i kinda made it seem like a bigger deal than it actually was...but still, Quinn wouldn't have talked to Santana without him, so i guess he still helped progress the story line...he's still a douce bag though...**


	6. Chapter 6

**Ok, so I officially feel like the worst person ever. I haven't updated in like, a week. I feel so awful...whatever, it was worth it. ;) I went to disney world and, wait for it...HARRY POTTER WORLD! lol it was like the best thing ever! Butterbeer taste really weird...like liquified butterscotch. It was still really cool though. :) **

**So i got home two days ago, but i had to unpack and on top of everything else, both of my little sisters are sick...i'm probably going to be sick within the week...oh fun...**

**Anyway, back to what you actually care about. so stuff has slowly been added onto this chapter over the past week because i didn't really have much time to write while i was there, so dont hate me. it's probably not as much as you guys wanted, but its still an update i guess...ok you can hate me...anyway, enjoy!**

Quinn closed her eyes and let out a long, shaky breath. What was she supposed to do now? There was no way that she was just going to sit by and wait until Santana asked for help. By then, there would be no telling what could happen to her. Already, it seemed like Santana would never truly be the same again.

The blonde looked down as she heard her phone chime.

**Brittany (1:42 PM)**

**-whats wrong?-B.**

Quinn hesitated. She couldn't tell Brittany about Santana over the phone. Although she never asked them about what went on behind closed doors, she had a pretty good idea. However, in the past couple of months, she had noticed the glances that one of them would send when the other wasn't looking. At first, Quinn hadn't thought anything of it. But she started noticing the slightly longing looks that Santana would send in Brittany's direction during glee club and the daggers she shot at Artie every chance she got. Quinn had never seen Santana get like that before. Ever. It confused the hell_out of the blonde ex-cheerleader.

That is, until Holly Holiday made her reappearance. After the two sang Landslide together, Quinn started to piece together the puzzle that was the relationship between Santana and Brittany. Their friends-with-benefits relationship might not have just been about the sex. Santana didn't do feelings, but that didn't mean that she didn't have any. When she thought about it, everything made perfect sense. No one else seemed to be able to tame the bitch_in Santana quite like Brittany and no one else seemed to be able to explain everything to Brittany quite like Santana. They were complete opposites, yet they fit together perfectly.

But then they stopped speaking to each other. Seemingly out of nowhere, the two ex-Cheerios acted as though they weren't even friends. It was strange to see one of them without the other. For as long as Quinn had known them, every time she saw them, they were always together and joined at the pinky.

**-meet me in the choir room in 5.-Q.**

Quinn stowed her phone in her pocket and made her way out of the bathroom as the bell rung. As the hallway began to fill with students, she maneuvered towards her locker to put her books away, seeing as she wasn't planning on going to class. Her English test wasn't even close to the top on her list of priorities at the moment.

She closed her locker and started walking in the direction of the choir room. This was not going to be an easy conversation. How was she supposed to tell Brittany that her best friend was being beaten on possibly a regular basis? Reaching the choir room, she stopped outside the door, knowing that there was no going back after this. Quietly, she turned the handle and walked in.

Brittany was already waiting for her inside the room. The taller blonde was sitting on one of the chairs on the second row, looking down at the floor. Quinn took a deep breath and walked over to the girl. Sitting down, she grabbed one of Brittany's hands.

Without taking her eyes off the floor, Brittany whispered, "I tried to talk to her, Q. She was in the auditorium, just crying. I wanted to know what was wrong," she looked up at Quinn with sad eyes. "She said that no one could help her. That I would just get hurt. I don't know what she was talking about, Quinn."

Quinn's heart almost broke when she heard Brittany's hurt voice. "I know what happened, B. What's still happening." She said hesitantly.

Brittany's eyebrows furrowed at Quinn's words, "What's going on, Quinn? What do you mean? What's still happening?"

"Britt, I'm-"

"Quinn, what is going on?" Brittany repeated herself, more forcefully this time. She needed to know what was happening _now_.

The shorter blonde drew in a deep breath, "B, someone's hitting her. Like, really badly."

Brittany looked away from Quinn. Her gaze rested on the checkered tiles of the choir room floor. _No. Please no. Not to Santana, _she thought, hoping that the words Quinn had just said weren't true. As hard as she wished that the words weren't correct, she knew that they were. Without shifting her gaze, she choked out, "Who?"

Quinn hesitated, making Brittany look up at her. Her eyes were a mix of emotions; none of them usually seen in the dancer's blue eyes. There was confusion, anger, and sadness. "I don't know," Quinn said, avoiding the taller blonde's eyes. She retold the events of the afternoon to Brittany, whose eyes slowly began to fill with silent tears.

When Quinn finished, Brittany just looked at the ground, hands clasped together in front of her. Thoughts were zooming around her head at a million miles an hour. How had she not noticed the signs before? She knew that something was wrong, but had no idea that it was this bad. Why hadn't she said something sooner? #!*% , why hadn't anyone else said anything? Surely she and Quinn couldn't have been the only ones who noticed that something was seriously wrong, right? Brittany was angry. Not just at whoever was hurting her best friend, but at herself. Angry that she hadn't noticed sooner and when she finally did, she still didn't say anything.

"How long?" her question broke the long silence, catching Quinn off guard. "How long do you think this has been happening?"

Quinn thought for a moment before answering, "I-I really don't know, B," she hung her head.

Running a hand through her hair, Brittany let out a long breath. "What are we going to do?" Quinn looked up. "About Santana? She doesn't want our help, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. You in?" she looked at her friend. Quinn nodded. "We have to talk to her, Q. Like, now." Once again, Quinn nodded.

"But how? She didn't want us to know. That's why she wasn't talking to us. If she told us, she said that _he _was going to find out. Now that we do know, there's no way that she's going to talk to us. To her, it's safer that way; for us and for her. Knowing Santana, she doesn't want you to get hurt. I doubt she cares about me, but she knows that if I knew, I would tell you," Brittany stared at her, mouth open. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not stupid," Still Brittany stared at her. "Seriously? It's not as if you two are the most subtle people in the world." Finally, the taller blonde closed her mouth and looked away from Quinn, blushing slightly. Quinn chuckled.

Brittany looked down, "It's not like it matters now," Quinn was confused. "I completely screwed up. She came to talk to me the day after we sang that song in glee club. She told me that she loved me," she paused, not looking at a very shocked Quinn. "I-I told her that I loved her too but I couldn't be with her…because of Artie. She got mad and started crying. After that, she just walked away. She wouldn't talk to me after. Like, at all. Then came Regionals and she-," suddenly she stopped talking, causing Quinn to look at her extremely confused. "Oh my God," she whispered.

"What?" Quinn asked.

Brittany looked at her with wide eyes, "That's why she wasn't at the party. That's when it started," Realization shone in Quinn's eyes. "I talked to her the next morning. She told me that she just fell asleep. I tried to come over, but she told me that she had homework to do. I knew something was up, but I thought she just didn't want to talk to me because of what happened. I am so stupid!" she yelled, getting increasingly angry at herself.

"No, Britt. No you're not," Quinn said. "This is not your fault," she paused for a moment. "I think that you should try and talk to her after glee club today," Brittany opened her mouth to speak, but Quinn cut her off. "I know she's probably going to try and get away from you, but you've got to try. If anybody's gonna be able to get through to her, it's gonna be you."

Brittany hesitated before nodding her agreement, "You're right," she held out her hand to Quinn. Together, they stood up and Quinn held her arms open, inviting Brittany in for a hug. The tall blonde let a small, sad smile cross her face as she leaned into the hug.

"It's gonna be okay," Quinn whispered in Brittany's ear. All Brittany could do was nod.

* * *

><p>An hour and a half later, the two blondes were sitting together in glee club. Brittany was playing with her bracelet. The bracelet Santana had given her for her thirteenth birthday. It was a blue and red woven friendship bracelet. Brittany smiled at the memory.<p>

"_Why blue and red? Why not orange or something?" Brittany asked Santana as the Latina tied the bracelet around her wrist._

_Santana looked up and smiled at Brittany, "I don't know, really. It just seemed like the right colors," she paused for a minute. "Maybe it's you and me; I'm the red and you're the blue. It makes sense if you think about it." She joked. _

"_And the colors are woven together. They're not going anywhere. Just like us," Brittany said, a wide smile spread across her face. _

"_Exactly. They're together forever. Even if it does sound a little cheesy," Santana laughed._

_Brittany held out her pinky and smiled, "Pinky promise?"_

"_Pinky promise."_

"Pinky promise," Brittany whispered to herself. Looking up, she saw Artie roll into the choir room, a look on his face that was a mixture of depression and anger. Quickly, the danced dropped her gaze again. She could feel his eyes on the top of her head, but to be honest, she really didn't care.

Her head snapped up again when she felt Quinn tap her on the arm. Santana had just entered the choir room, head down and looking at the floor. She took a seat in the corner of the back row, away from everyone else, never taking her eyes off the floor. Brittany noticed that she wasn't the only one watching Santana: Quinn, of course, was watching her out of the corner of her eye. But more surprisingly, so was Artie. He had a blank expression on his face, as if he couldn't decide what emotion he was feeling.

Late as usual, Mr. Shue walked into the choir room with smile on his face, "Alright guys, today we're gonna work on the choreography for our number for Nationals. I think that our singing still could use a little improvement, but we really need to focus on the dancing right now," His eyes stopped on Finn for a second and almost everyone laughed. Rachel wrapped her arms around one of Finn's as he eyed the ground in embarrassment. Quinn rolled her eyes in annoyance, making Brittany chuckle.

_Oh crap_, thought Santana as she heard Mr. Shue's announcement. How was she supposed to dance right now? The bruises on her stomach and basically every other part of her body were not going to handle the movement right now. There was no way she would be able to get through the dance without either passing out or puking. _Whatever. I can at least try to make it to the end of practice. _She attempted to put on a strong face as she stood up with the rest of the group, much to the dismay of her abdomen. _This is gonna be a really long hour. _

For the next half hour, the glee club practiced their dance (choreographed by Mike and Brittany) for Nationals. The entire time, Santana's entire body felt like it was on fire. Finally, Mr. Shue called for a five minute break. _Thank God_, thought Santana as she went to sit on the choir room floor. Very bad idea.

Almost immediately, her head started to spin. _Crap, not now. _The pain in her stomach seemed to have been magnified by ten in the last half hour. Her stomach already hurt more than usual. The night before had been really bad. Worse than usual.

Her eyes squeezed shut, trying to make the room stop spinning, but she couldn't. She opened her eyes for a minute to see Brittany walking towards her with a worried look on her face. That was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

**I'm such an evil person...mwahahaha lol ;) this might possibly be the first cliffhanger i've done so im not _that _evil yet. What did you guys think? The random bracelet flashback kinda just came out of nowhere...doesn't really serve any purpose whatsoever...O.o**

**Ok so things get a little more intese now, but trust me, it gets worse (better? i dont know, you tell me)...review, favorite, anything that will send me an email, and i will be a very happy person ;) **

**oh, before i forget, i screwed up in the authors note at the end of last chapter; i said Quinn and _Santana, _when i meant to say Quinn and Brittany...and that, my friends, is why we proofread...ok see ya later! :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**So, i feel kinda bad about that cliffhanger. And technically, its already saturday, so i kinda missed a day of updating, but then again it is 1:30 in the morning, so i only missed it by an hour and a half. Im kinda an evil person, i suppose. Anyway, it's an update. I was planning on posting this later, but Hurricane Irene had other plans. In about 18 hours, i will probably be out of power, so i'm just gonna warn you now: I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO POST FOR LIKE, THREE OR MORE DAYS. Why the_hell is there even a hurricane in maryland anyway? Isn't that what florida's for? Sorry, rambling.**

**Anyway, this chapter's got some unholy trinity and a lot of confusion in it...hope you enjoy! :)**

Brittany watched as Santana's eyes squeezed shut, like she was in immense pain. She started to walk towards the Latina, who was currently sitting on the choir room floor, knees bent slightly in front of her. For a moment, Santana's eyes fluttered open and locked with Brittany's, only to close again a second later. Her body began to sway slightly and then she fell to the floor. "Santana!" Brittany yelled. All eyes turned to the blonde as she ran towards the now unconscious Latina, Quinn right behind her. None of them had any idea what was going on.

"What the_hell?" said a very confused Mercedes. "Did Santana just pass out?" she looked at Tina. She just shrugged.

Brittany knelt down next to Santana, a look of extreme worry on her face. The expression was the same on Quinn, who was standing behind Brittany. "C'mon Santana. Wake up!" said Brittany, brushing a piece of hair out of Santana's face. She looked up at Quinn, eyes begging for help. Quinn just stood there, helpless and having no idea what to do.

"Guys, what's wrong?" Mr. Shue asked, rushing over to where Brittany and Quinn were. Quinn turned around to look at him.

"Santana passed out," she said, urgency flowing through her words.

Mr. Shue nodded his understanding, "Okay. We need to get her to the nurse." Like the majority of his glee club, he was extremely concerned as well as confused as to what exactly was going on.

Brittany and Quinn shared a brief glance before Quinn nodded at the taller blonde. "I can take her, Mr. Shue," Brittany said, surprising herself at how steady her voice was. The rest of the club, besides Quinn and Artie, raised their eyebrows in surprise. They all knew that Santana and Brittany hadn't spoken in weeks. But then again, they were still best friends.

Mr. Shue hesitated for a moment, "Are you sure, Brittany?" the dancer nodded. "Um, ok then. I'm just going to call the nurse and tell her that you're coming." He walked away and into his office.

Carefully, Brittany picked Santana up bridal style. She had no idea where Santana was hurt, so she tried to be as gentle as possible. Everyone in the choir room was looking at her with a mixture of concern and confusion on their faces except for Quinn. Quinn had the same expression as Brittany did: sadness. They both knew what this was about.

Quinn stepped closer to Brittany and whispered softly so no one would hear, "When she wakes up, you need to talk to her." She stepped back, eyes searching Brittany's face, looking for any form of disagreement. Her search stopped when Brittany nodded her head. The dancer let a small smile cross her face before she started to walk out of the choir room, Santana in her arms. Quinn watched her go.

Once Brittany and Santana were out of the choir room, Quinn turned around. She met the confused faces of her fellow glee clubbers. "Okay, what the_hell just happened?" Puck asked. "What aren't you telling us?"

_Oh crap._

* * *

><p>Brittany was sitting in the nurse's office, next to the exam table that Santana was still passed out on. It had been about ten minutes since they had left the choir room and Santana still hadn't woken up. The nurse hadn't been able to check her out any further because she was busy with a boy who fell down two flights of stairs and quite possibly broke their leg. Plus, the guy wouldn't stop screaming, not that anyone could blame him. <strong>[AN: Randomly making stuff up, right here.]**

The nurse walked in and looked at Brittany, "Her father is on his way to come and pick her up. He should be here in about ten minutes," She smiled softly when she saw the worry on Brittany's face. "She's going to be fine."

_Yeah, right, _thought Brittany as she looked back at Santana. The Latina looked so small. The more Brittany looked at Santana, the more she realized how far she had fallen in just a few short months. Her eyes were sunken in and had dark rings underneath. Her face was unnaturally thin. How Brittany had missed the fading bruise on Santana's face, she didn't know. It scared her to think that Santana could possibly look so broken. She sighed and closed her eyes.

* * *

><p>Santana felt her eyes flutter open. She was greeted by the sight of beige walls covered in posters ranging from how to properly wash your hands to the causes of puking. <em>What the_hell? Where am I? <em>she thought as she slowly sat up. Looking around, she figured out that she was in the nurse's office. Slowly, the events of the past hour came back to her. She groaned and covered her eyes with her hand. How could she be so stupid? How exactly was she supposed to explain passing out in the middle of glee club to everyone?

Removing her hand from her face, Santana slowly sat up, trying her best to ignore the ever-present pain in her abdomen. She stopped when she felt a gently hand on her shoulder, trying to keep her down. Out of instinct, the Latina flinched and tried to jump away from the hand. But she recognized this hand. She looked behind her and saw Brittany standing next to her. "Hey, it's okay. It's just me," the blonde said gently. "Lay back down. It's okay." She repeated.

Santana shook her head and continued her attempt to sit up. "San, please," Brittany pleaded. Santana hesitated before finally giving in. She laid back down, refusing to meet Brittany's gaze. There was no way that Quinn hadn't told Brittany about what happened in the bathroom earlier that day.

After a long silence, Brittany finally spoke up, "I know what's going on. Quinn told me what happened," she stated, concern evident in her words. "San, who's hurting you? I can make it stop. Just, please. Tell me." she pleaded.

Santana shook her head again. Oh, how she wanted to tell Brittany everything. She would give anything to just be able to make it stop. Anything but Brittany. "I-I can't," she could feel the tears start to well up in her eyes. "He's gonna hurt you. He's gonna kill me," her voice cracked on the last word. Still, she hadn't looked at Brittany. The blonde could feel her tears coming.

"No, San. No he won't. Tell me who it is, and we can make him go away. Forever. Please, just tell me who it is."

Santana didn't respond. Should she tell Brittany about her father? If she told Brittany, then the police would more than likely be involved. After that, then what? What was she supposed to do after that? Her father was an incredible liar. He would be able to get the cops off his tracks in a heartbeat. Then, Brittany would be in trouble and Santana would probably be either in the hospital or nearly dead. But then again, the bruises on her body would probably be enough evidence to prove that her father was the one who was beating her. She would be free of her father. Her tormenter. Her abuser.

In a moment, Santana made her decision. She looked over at Brittany, who was still gazing at her intently, and opened her mouth to speak. "It's-" she never got a chance to finish her sentence.

At that moment, the nurse walked into the room and said, "Oh, Santana. Good, you're awake," she smiled warmly. "Your father is here to take you home." Santana felt her heart stop as she heard the woman's sentence. Her father. Was here.

As if on cue, Santana's father walked through the door with his hands in his pockets, his concerned-father-façade clearly evident on his face. He wore an expression of worry, but Santana knew it was a lie. He was still in his hospital scrubs from work. "Hey, sweetie," Santana flinched, which did not go unnoticed by Brittany. The blonde furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "You ready to go?" Santana lowered her head and nodded. Her father smiled and turned to the nurse, "Thank you so much for your trouble. I think I can take care of her from here," The younger Latina felt sick to her stomach. _Take care of her from here? No, no, no, no, no, _she thought as she slid off the exam table, trying to hide her grimace.

She walked with her father out of the nurse's office, followed closely by Brittany. "Hey, San?" Santana turned around. "If you need anything, just call, okay?" the Latina nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow."

_Not likely, _Santana thought as she turned back around and started walking with her father. She felt his hand grab her forearm. Her head screamed at her to turn around one last time. It was probably going to be the last time she saw Brittany. Risking one last look, she turned around to look at her blonde haired best friend. The best friend she loved so much. Brittany's face was full of worry.

Santana made up her mind; she needed to ask for help. If she didn't, she probably wouldn't ever see Brittany again. Silently, she shot Brittany a look that said, "Please help me!" She watched as the look on Brittany's face changed from worry to confusion. _No, please! You have to understand! _She turned around to walk with her father when she felt the grip on her forearm become painful. _Please understand._

* * *

><p>Brittany stood in front of the door to the nurse's office, more confused than ever. What did all of this mean? She turned around and slowly started walking back to class. Why did Santana flinch when her father start talking to her? Maybe it was just her normal reaction, like how she had reacted when Brittany touched her shoulder. But that didn't explain how Santana looked terrified when the nurse came into talk to them. Was it because her father was there? Did she not want him to see her in the nurse's office? What was that look that Santana had sent her over her shoulder?<p>

Brittany had rarely ever talked to Mr. Lopez. He was always at work and even when he was at home, he was locked up in his study. For the past, well, forever, Brittany had always spent a lot of time at Santana's house. The only time she had seen her best friend's father was at birthday parties or some of the sleepovers she and Santana would have together. But she knew that he was really nice. He was always nice to her when she would sleep over.

Wait, why wasn't Santana's mom picking her up? Mrs. Lopez only worked part time, so she would always pick her daughter up in a situation like this. In fact, Brittany hadn't seen Mrs. Lopez in a really long time. Even before she Santana had stopped speaking. Whenever she had gone over to her best friend's house, she had always been told that Santana's mom was on a business trip. Also, she had heard her mom talking on the phone with one of her friends. She had said something about Santana's mom, but quickly ended her sentence when she saw Brittany watching her from around the corner. _Oh my God, _thought Brittany. _Her mom's gone. _

That added another large piece to the puzzle. But why was Santana still so jumpy around her dad? Then it hit her. She stopped walking abruptly as she finally figured out what was going on. _Oh. My. God. _Her mouth fell open as she realized what was going on. "It's him. It's her dad," she said to herself. "And she just left with him." Not even bothering to go get Quinn, Brittany sprinted as fast as she could through the hallways, trying to find the exit that led to the parking lot.

Finally everything made sense to her. That was why she had looked so terrified when the nurse told her that her father was here. The way she flinched when her father talked to her. The look she sent over her should her. Her father was the one who was beating her. And Brittany just let her walk out of the school with the man who was now probably going to come close to killing her.

**So, i might possibly be the most evil person on this planet. if you didn't think i was evil before, you probably do now...mwahahaha ;) so Brittany figured it out. I tried to have her take a little bit longer to figure it out just cuz, well, she's Brittany, but not too long though. I mean, i know that Brittany isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but i'm trying to not make her look like the stupidest person on the planet. **

**I'm still not exactly sure what Quinn is planning on telling the rest of the glee club, so if you guys have any ideas whatsoever, i could really use the help. (Ive kinda been focused on the whole Santana's dad part of this chapter to worry about that. sorry.) **

**I hope you liked it and don't hate me too much for the cliff hanger! Review, favorite, anything. I WANT/NEED MORE EMAILS! lol im so epic ;) **


	8. Chapter 8

**sup peeps? ok, so i know that a bunch (probably more than a bunch) of people are mad at me the moment. That was my second cliffhanger in a row...sorry, but i kinda couldn't find anyother way to end that chapter...**

**so it seems that i won't be out of power for the next three days lol ;) i was out for about two hours, but then i came back on about fifteen minutes ago. I guess pepco finally got their_shit together lol **

**So this chapter is kinda dark, like possibly darker than the first chapter (if thats possible...). More sad though... anyway, theres a bunch of back and forth action that's goin on here, like scene wise (by the way, if none of what im saying makes sense to you, it's because i'm sleep deprived and barely know what i'm saying) anyway, hope you enjoy!**

Santana sat in her father's car, trying to be as quiet as possible. Her father still hadn't said a word to her as he drove, but she could almost see the fury radiating off of him. His knuckles had turned white from how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. As they pulled into the driveway, Mr. Lopez went to get out of the car. When Santana didn't move, he turned and looked at her. "Out. Now." He growled in a dangerous voice. Santana flinched at his words. Knowing that there was no way to win this battle, she slowly pulled the handle and opened the car door.

* * *

><p>Brittany cursed as she rummaged through her bag in search of her car keys. It had been about ten minutes since Santana had left with her father, which meant ten minutes more he had to hurt her. Finally, Brittany found her keys and unlocked her car. She jumped in and jammed the key into the ignition, not even bothering to put her seat belt on. Putting the car into gear and slamming her foot down on the pedal, she heard her tires screech as the car started to move. It was about a fifteen minute drive to Santana's house from McKinley, but the way Brittany was driving, she could make it there in less than ten. "Come on!" she shouted in frustration as she watched the traffic light in front of her turn to red.<p>

Santana walked into her house, her father right behind her. When she reached the living room, she turned around and looked at her father, "Dad, I-" she was cut off by a hard slap to the face. Cupping her cheek, she looked down at the floor, knowing what was about to happen.

"You told that girl, didn't you?" he screamed at her, slapping her again. "That your little _girlfriend_? Huh? You little_slut **[A/N: I officially hate my laptop...]**!" he punched her in the gut, causing her to let out a muffled scream. It hurt so much. Santana doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach. It was getting more difficult to breathe.

"No! I didn't, I swear!" she gasped. "Please!"

"You're a liar," another punch was delivered to her stomach. "And you're a_slut," he grabbed Santana's shoulders and shoved her to the ground. As she fell, her head hit the corner of a small table. Her vision went blurry and she could feel the blood beginning to flow out of the wound. As the younger Latina hit the ground, she held out her arm, trying to brace herself. Landing on her wrist, she felt the bone snap. Holding back a scream, Santana cradled her broken wrist.

She watched as her father walked towards her, malice clear on his face. "I told you to keep your mouth shut. You disobeyed me," he said in a dangerously low voice. "You need to be punished, _mija_." He spat out the last word as he kicked her hard in the chest. Santana coughed violently at the impact. Again she felt the impact of her father's foot, but this time on her already severely bruised abdomen. Over and over, he kicked her in the stomach mercilessly. She couldn't take it anymore. Closing her eyes, she let the darkness swallow her.

* * *

><p>Brittany rounded the corner onto the street that Santana live on. Slowing down the car, she pulled over as she watched Santana's father exit the house and get back into his car. The blonde waited for him to turn the opposite corner in his car before starting her own again. As she pulled into Santana's driveway, she flung herself out of the car and ran to the front door. "Santana!" she called as she banged on the door. There was no answer. "Santana!" Brittany called again. Still, no answer was heard. Trying the handle, she cursed when she found that the door was locked. <em>Think, Brittany! Where's the key? <em>

_Wait a minute. Do I still have my key? _She sprinted back to her car and opened the glove box. Sure enough, the spare key that Santana had given Brittany so long ago was still in there. Grabbing the key, Brittany raced back to the front door and shoved the key into the lock. The dancer pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. "Santana?" she called once again, hoping that her best friend simply hadn't heard her. She looked down when she felt her foot brush against something. It was Santana's backpack, the contents of which were spilling out of the top, as if it had been thrown on the floor. Stepping over the mess of school supplies, Brittany continued to walk through Santana's house.

"San? Are you here?" Brittany called again, praying to hear an answer. She stopped moving when she heard a small groan coming from her left. Turning towards the noise, Brittany saw a crumpled figure on the floor, redness covering the back of their head. Immediately, she knew that it was Santana. "Oh my God," whispered Brittany as she ran towards the unconscious Santana. Dropping to her knees, Brittany rolled Santana over so that she was lying on her back. Cradling Santana in her arms, the blonde looked at her best friend. A black eye was beginning to form on Santana's left eye and her lip was split. There was blood coming out of a wound on the back of her hear. The sweatshirt that the Latina was wearing had ridden up, revealing the black and blue flesh underneath.

Pulling out her cell phone, Brittany quickly dialed 911. "911. What is your emergency?" said the lady on the opposite end.

"Please, help! It's my friend! She's really hurt! You've gotta help her!" Brittany yelled into the phone. She could feel the tears dripping down her face, though she wasn't sure when they had started.

"Okay, miss, we're sending someone right now. What's your friend's name?" the lady said calmly.

"S-Santana. Santana Lopez." Brittany stuttered.

"Okay. How is she hurt?"

"I don't know. She-she's got blood coming out of her head, and her face and stomach are all bruised up. She won't wake up!" cried Brittany.

"Try and keep pressure on where the blood is coming from. Can you do that for me? the lady asked, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

Brittany looked around and grabbed the first thing she could find that was made of cloth: the blanket hanging on the back of the couch. She pressed it onto Santana's head, trying to stop the blood flow that had quickly matted the Latina's dark hair. With her other hand, she raised the phone to her ear, "I put the pressure on it, like you said," she said.

The lady on the other end said, "Good job. What's your name, sweetie? Are you hurt."

"Brittany. I'm not hurt"

"Okay, Brittany, the ambulance is going to be there in about fifteen minutes. Until they get there, I want you to just keep putting pressure on Santana's head. Can you do that?" the lady asked.

Brittany nodded, but then realized that the lady couldn't see her, "Yeah, I can do that."

"It's going to be okay, Brittany. Do you want me to stay on the line with you until the paramedics arrive?"

Brittany shook her head, "No, it's okay."

"I'm going to hang up now, okay?" The lady said.

"Okay. Bye." Brittany said, turning her attention back to Santana.

"Goodbye Brittany." The blonde didn't even hear the last words the lady spoke. She had already put her phone back into her pocket and returned her hands to Santana. She cupped Santana's face in her hands and brushed a clump of matted hair out of the Latina's face.

"Please, Santana! You've gotta wake up!" sobbed Brittany. The blonde was panicking. She had no idea what to do. The blood flow coming out of Santana's head had slowed down a little, but there was still some flowing. Brittany was full on sobbing now. "Come on, San! Please!"

Slowly, Santana's eyes fluttered open. Brittany gasped and brought Santana into her chest, cradling her tightly. "Britt," the brunette croaked. Brittany looked down at her, eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry. For everything," Santana's voice was barely even a whisper.

Brittany shook her head, "None of this is your fault. Just stay with me. The ambulance is coming. Everything's gonna be okay." It seemed as though she was trying to convince herself of that as well as Santana.

"But I'm so tired. It just hurts," Santana said, her eyes starting to droop. The ounce of hope Brittany had was starting to slip away again.

"No, San! Don't close your eyes!" the dancer cried. Santana struggled, but was able to keep her eyes from falling shut. "Just stay with me, okay? Hey, do you remember the summer before freshman year? We were in my back yard, just laying in the grass. You didn't want to because it was itchy, but I basically begged you to stay," Brittany said, trying to keep Santana from closing her eyes again. If her they did close, Brittany wasn't sure if she would ever see them open again. "You were getting all mad because Lord Tubbington kept jumping on you. When you tried to throw him off of you, he scratched your arm," she watched as Santana remembered the event. As she did, a small smile appeared on her face. "I rolled over and told you that I could make it all better, but you would have to close your eyes. You looked a little confused, but eventually you closed your eyes. Yup, I made it better, alright," she chuckled and the smile on Santana's face got a little bit bigger. "That was the first time we ever kissed."

"I love you," Santana said, her voice still barely a whisper. She could feel the darkness starting to come over her again, but fought to keep it away.

Brittany smiled and pressed a soft kiss to Santana's lips, "I love you, too," She watched Santana smile softly, before her eyes started to droop again. "No, San! Come on! Don't leave me! Just a little bit longer, please!" Brittany sobbed.

"I'm sorry," Santana whispered as her eyes closed again. Brittany just gripped Santana tighter to her chest and sobbed into her dark hair.

She didn't know how long it was before she heard the sound of sirens outside of Santana's house. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. She really didn't know. Brittany felt strong hands trying to pry her away from Santana. As hard as she tried, she couldn't fight the hands. She watched as two men ran to Santana's side as she was pulled away from the scene. She screamed and fought the strong arms pulling her away, but eventually she just gave up. There was no use. "Shhh…it's okay," said the owner of the arms. The paramedic holding her guided her outside, where she dropped onto the curb and put her head in her hands.

After a couple of minutes, Brittany heard the sound of people coming out of the house. Standing up, she saw two paramedics walking a stretcher holding Santana out of the house. She walked over and asked, "Can I please ride with her?" her voice was distressed. The two paramedics shared a glance, holding a silent discussion. "Please. I'm her best friend."

The taller of the two nodded and said, "Sure. C'mon, we've gotta move fast." They put the stretcher in and let Brittany climb in after. She took Santana's hand and held it tightly. The rest of the ride in the ambulance was a blur. When they arrived at the hospital, Brittany followed the paramedics, but was stopped when she reached a set of double doors.

"I'm sorry, miss, but you can't go through here. There's a waiting room right over there," said the doctor at the door. Brittany wanted to protest, but she knew that it wouldn't do her any good. Without a word, she walked to the waiting room and dropped into a chair. Looking down at her hands, she realized that they were covered in blood. Santana's blood. As she continued to inspect herself, she noticed that she had spots of blood on both her shirt and pants.

After wiping her hands carelessly on her pants, she pulled out her phone and typed a text to Quinn. She closed her phone and leaned her head back, praying that Santana was going to be fine.

* * *

><p>Quinn felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. It had been a little over an hour since Santana and Brittany had gone to the nurse's office, but Brittany still hadn't come back. In that time period, Quinn had been questioned more than she ever had in her entire life. The glee club was merciless in the quest to find answers about why Santana had passed out in the middle of class. They all knew that Quinn knew more than she was telling and they refused to let it go. She still hadn't said anything. It wasn't her place to say anything. Plus, she knew that if she told them, Puck would probably end up in juvie again from beating the crap out of whoever was hurting Santana.<p>

The blonde rolled her eyes as the rest of the club's interest in her texts. Pulling out her phone, she saw that she had a text from Brittany.

**Brittany (4:53 PM):**

**-santanas in the hospital. shes hurt rly bad. get here now-B.**

Quinn's jaw dropped as she reread the text. Santana was in the hospital. She was hurt really badly. "Oh_shit," the blonde whispered under her breath. Her action didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the club.

"What? What's wrong?" Sam asked, eyeing Quinn. He, as well as everyone else, had a look of pure confusion on his face.

Quinn snapped her head up and looked at Mr. Shue. "Mr. Shue, I need to be excused. Like, right now." She said, urgency apparent in her words. The teacher looked up at her in surprise.

"Quinn, what's going on?"

"Please, Mr. Shue," she pleaded. She needed to get to the hospital _now. _

Mr. Shue hesitated before nodding, "Yeah, sure." Not waiting for an opportunity to have to explain herself, she grabbed her bag and ran out of the choir room, shoving her phone in her pocket along the way. Running towards the parking lot, she fished around in her bag in search of her car keys. When she reached her car, she pressed to button to unlock it and threw the door open. She sat down and pulled her phone out and sent a text to Brittany telling her that she was on her way. Shoving the key into the ignition and putting the car into gear, she slammed her foot down on the petal.

Honestly, she didn't think she had ever driven that fast before. She reached the hospital in record time. As she walked into the ER waiting room, she saw a familiar blonde figure hunched over in one of the chairs. She walked over to Brittany and took a seat in the empty chair next to her. Quinn took in Brittany's appearance. She had dried blood on her hands. There was blood on her shirt and pants. Her hair was a complete mess and her face was blotchy and tearstained. The dancer looked up at Quinn, her face full of sadness. Without a word, Quinn wrapped her arms around Brittany. The taller girl sobbed into Quinn's shoulder as Quinn rubbed comforting circles on Brittany's back. She had no idea what had happened in that last hour, but whatever it was, it was extremely bad.

**What did you guys think? That's not too big of a cliffhanger, is it? i tried to be nice this time and not leave you guys hanging like ive done the past couple of chapters...**

**So, theres Brittana in here, maybe not in the context that you wanted it, but Brittana none the less...its unholy trinity friendship, sorta...more like Brittany/Quinn friendship, Santana/Quinn friendship (sorta, not really i guess...idk) and then Brittana...i honestly have no idea what i'm even talking about anymore..X_x...im just gonna end this authors note before i say something stupid...review, favorite, you know the drill...email...email...email...I WANT EMAILS lol bye peoples! :)**

**Oh, before i forget, i took dancelikeheya's advice on what to do with Quinn and the rest of the glee club. i know that its kinda suckishly pathetic how i dealt with that, but my priorities do not lie with the glee club right now...sorry peeps. im not spending more time on them cuz their time comes later...anyway, thanks dancelikeheya! :D :D :D :D**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hola peeps. Ok, so I totally screwed up. A couple of chapters back, in the choir room, I had rachel like, clinging to finn, cuz, well I thought they were still dating at this point. Well, as it turns out, I totally forgot about their brake up in Special Education...and how Quinn and Finn were already back together by the time Original Song came around...I epicly fail...well, for the purpose of the story, just pretend that they didnt break up. It's really not that big of a deal when it come to the actual Finchel part, just the part about Quinn being single right now...no, by the way, Quinn isn't getting a significant other in this fic...just gonna put that out there right now...**

**Ok, my screw up aside, this chapter's got some action with the rest of the glee club and Artie not really being a douce bag. In fact he's kind of nice (the reason I'm laying off Artie right now is cuz I just rewatched like all of the episode of early/mid season 2, and I kinda came to the conclusion that Santana is mildly civil towards Artie/might possibly like him just cuz he made Brittany happy) I finally accepted this while watching the end of A Very Glee Christmas, you know, when Artie gets his ReWalk.**

**OMG, speaking of which, I just rewatched Duets, and I noticed something kinda of hilarious/awesome. Ok, so you know the scene where Brittany is wheeling Artie down the hallway and then turns around to look at Santana? Well, I noticed that Mercedes is lurking in the background of that scene, watching...like, if you look behind Santana and to the left, you can see Mercedes watching Brittany and Santana...it's like the funniest/best thing ever! I think from now on, whenever I update another chapter, I'm gonna post a funny/awesome Brittana moment that is just background stuff that people wouldn't usually notice...it's like entertainment in the entertertainment...oh crap, I just went all Inception up in here...sorry...lol ;)**

**Ok, so I hope you guys enjoy this chapter... :)**

The glee kids sat in the choir room in silence. Every single one of their minds was racing, trying to figure out what was going on with the Unholy Trinity, but more just with Santana. Both of the blondes knew what was going on with McKinley's resident_bitch, but neither were sharing any information.

"Okay," Mercedes said, pulling everyone from their thoughts. "Is anyone gonna say what we're all wondering out loud?" No one spoke up. "Fine. What the_hell is going on with Satan? No one just passes out in the middle of class for no reason."

Sam shook his head, "But she's been acting really weird for a while," A few people looked at him in confusion. He raised his eyebrow, "Seriously? None of you realized that she's been acting different?"

"Well, yeah. She stopped making fun of everyone all the time." Finn pointed out.

"But there's something more to it though. What about her clothes? The only things she's been wearing are sweatshirts and jeans. Does that sound like normal Santana behavior to you?" It was a rhetorical question, but Rachel being Rachel, she just had to answer.

"Well, not really. But then again, who's complaining? She's not being a bitch_anymore, so why should we care?" Sam, Puck and surprisingly, Tina gaped at her in disbelief.

"You're kidding me, right?" Tina asked.

"What?" the diva asked, genuinely confused.

"You see someone who has basically stopped speaking to _everyone_, is wearing clothes she never would before that is like, three sizes too big for her, and you ask why we should care?" Puck said to her, fully annoyed now.

Rachel scrambled, trying to justify her sentence. "I just mean that if there's something wrong, we should let her come to us. Not meddle in her business," she said, trying to redeem herself.

"Guys," all heads turned in Artie's direction. A few of their faces turned sympathetic; everyone had heard about his and Brittany's break up, but none of them were really sure what it was about though. "I-I think that it's time to meddle. She's not going to come to us," he said, using the same phrases Rachel had.

"What? How do you know?" Puck asked. As far as he knew, Artie had never spoken to Santana.

"Because of something Brittany said…when she broke up with me…" he trailed off and looked at his hands, a guilty expression on his face. A few of the kids exchanged silent glances. They were about to hear firsthand what had happened between Artie and Brittany.

"Dude, what did she say?" Sam asked curiously.

Artie hesitated for a moment. If he told them what had happened, why he and Brittany had broken up, he would basically be outing Santana. As much as he disliked the Latina, he couldn't do that to her. It just wasn't right. But then how else was he supposed to explain the brake up? He and Brittany broke up _because of _Santana. There was no other way to explain without telling them that Santana was gay. Maybe if he just told them what Brittany had said, they wouldn't ask him why they were talking about Santana in the first place. Yeah, that was what he was going to do. "She-she thinks that Santana is gonna try and kill herself," he heard several gasps, but continued with his explanation. "She was gonna go and talk to her after school and figure out what was going on."

"Oh my God," Tina whispered. Sure, Santana had been acting weird lately, but never did she seem suicidal. "You don't think that's why Quinn left all of a sudden, do you?" Nobody answered. They all knew what she meant.

"Wait a minute, why were you and Brittany even talking about Santana?" Rachel asked. "I mean, I know that it's not really important right now in comparison to what you just told us, but still though."

_Oh_shit. What am I supposed to say to that? Even if I was able to make something up, I'm a horrible liar. _"Uh…" he said, not really sure how he was supposed to explain himself. Suddenly he came up with an idea. An idea that didn't _really _have any lying in it, just a lot of omission. "Um, well I asked her if she wanted to hang out after school, but she said that she had to go talk to Santana," _True. _"I got mad at her because I thought she was just trying to blow me off," _True, sort of. _"But then she got angry and thought I was overreacting," _Not true. _"She told me that she was going to talk to Santana because she noticed how much she had changed in a really short amount of time. How she wasn't talking to anyone, how the clothes she was wearing were really different and big on her, how she wasn't eating. Britt said that Santana's probably lost like, fifteen pounds in the past two weeks. She's really jumpy too, like nervous all the time. That's when Brittany told me told me that she thought Santana was gonna kill herself." _Completely true. _Artie kept his gaze down in shame.

No one said a word. They were all wondering to themselves how they hadn't noticed just how much Santana had changed. Sure, a couple of them had noticed her clothes or how she stopped taking shots at everyone all the time, but none of them had looked that much into it before. They were all too wrapped up in their own lives to notice anything more.

Suddenly, Mike had a thought, "Hang on, what if it's not suicide that's going on here? That doesn't explain why she would be jumpy all the time. I mean, it makes sense with everything else, but not with the jumpiness." He saw a few people nod their agreement.

"Well, if it's not that, then what is it?" Finn asked. Silence overtook the choir room as they all thought over the question. All of a sudden Puck jumped out of his seat.

"Holy fucking_shit." he said angrily, startling at least half of the glee club. Scrambling, he pulled out his phone and dialed Quinn's number. Everyone looked at him in confusion. When Quinn didn't answer, he redialed the number and tried again.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Sam asked.

Puck looked at them and said, "I think I know what's going on. And you guys aren't gonna like it."

* * *

><p>Quinn pulled out of Brittany's embrace, hearing her phone ring in her pocket. The sobs coming from the taller blonde had reduced to small, occasional hiccups and a silent trail of tears making their way down her face. Quinn looked down at her phone, but ignored the call when she saw who it was from. She really couldn't have that conversation right now. To be honest, she wasn't even sure what had happened. All she knew was that Santana was in the hospital and that she was hurt really badly.<p>

Looking up at Brittany, she saw the pain in her friends face. Hesitantly, she asked, "Britt, what happened?"

For a moment, Brittany didn't answer. Keeping her gaze on the floor, she opened her mouth to speak, "She was still passed out when I took her to the nurse," her voice was scratchy from crying. "When she woke up, I tried to talk to her. I asked her who it was, but she wouldn't tell me. Said that he was going to hurt me and kill her," Brittany's voice cracked on the last two words. Quinn took her hand, silently encouraging her to go on. "I asked her again and I think she was going to tell me, but her dad came in to pick her up. She got really scared and flinched when he talked to her," the dancer looked up at Quinn, who's mouth was hanging open in confusion. "It's him, Quinn. He's the one who's been hurting her," Quinn's eyes went wide, but she stayed silent. "But by the time I figured it out, they were already like, ten minutes ahead of me. I went to her house. Her dad had just left again. That's when I found her," She stopped talking as more tears started pouring out of her eyes. Closing her eyes, she continued, her voice threatening to betray her with every word. "Her head, it was all bloody and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I tried to make it stop, but it just wouldn't," Quinn studied Brittany's hands and clothes; there was so much blood on them. "I tried to make her stay awake, but she said it just hurt so much. She just…" Brittany trailed off. Once again, Quinn wrapped Brittany in her tight embrace as tears leaked out of her own eyes.

How could someone do that to Santana? And how could that someone be her own _father_? "Britt, I'm so sorry," she whispered into Brittany's ear. The dancer didn't respond. After a couple of minutes, Brittany pulled out of the hug, a blank expression on her face. Quinn grabbed Brittany's hand gently. The taller blonde laid her head on Quinn's shoulder and closed her eyes.

Quinn heard her phone ring again. She ignored the call and put her phone on silent. "They're just going to keep calling, Q," Brittany said.

Quinn sighed, "I know. I just can't have that conversation with them right now. The guys are probably going to kill her dad when they find out."

"Not if I get to him first," Brittany muttered under her breath. However, it wasn't low enough for Quinn to not hear her. Quinn's head snapped to look at her friend.

"Britt, don't-," She was cut off by a doctor standing across the waiting room.

"Who is here for Santana Lopez?" he asked, his voice ringing through the quiet waiting room. Brittany and Quinn jumped up and walked over to him, eager to hear any news about their friend.

"That's us," Brittany gestured to herself and Quinn. The doctor took in her appearance. Judging by the blood on her clothes, he assumed that she was the one to have found Santana. _Poor girl, _he thought.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Carlson. I'm going to be taking care of Santana. You are…?" he asked, still not knowing their names.

"Uh, I'm Quinn and this is Brittany," the blonde looked at Brittany, who had her hands in her pockets and was staring at the floor. "We're Santana's best friends," Not exactly true for both of them, but it was better than saying that she was frenemies with Santana. "Brittany found her." She finished quietly.

Dr. Carlson nodded his understanding. "Well, Santana is very lucky," At this, Brittany picked her head up and looked at the doctor, confusion on her face. "You found her before anything could go seriously wrong. A lot of the damage could have been a lot worse. Santana has a broken wrist, which we were able to set in a cast, three broken ribs, severe bruising to her abdomen, arms and legs, a minor concussion and quite a bit of blood loss," he watched as the looks of confusion turned to looks of horror. "She's asleep now, but I think that it might be a while before she is able to go home," he paused for a moment. "These injuries are consistent with those of victims of child or domestic abuse. Do either of you two know anything about this?" Both of the blondes nodded.

"We just figured it out today," Brittany said quietly.

"Why don't we go sit down?" Dr. Carlson suggested. The two girls nodded and walked over to the chairs. "Go on." he said to Brittany.

"It's her dad," Dr. Carlson was shocked. He knew Dr. Lopez personally and worked with him almost every day. Never did the man seem violent. Well, he had been acting strange in the past month or so, but Dr. Carlson had thought nothing of it. "She's been acting weird for the past couple of weeks, but at first, we didn't think anything of it. She stopped talking to anyone. I hadn't talked to her because we got into a fight around the same time she started acting strange," Brittany dropped her gaze to her feet in shame. "But earlier today, I found her in the auditorium, just crying. I tried to ask her what was wrong, but she wouldn't tell me. She said I would just get hurt and it would be her fault. She ran out before I could get her to tell me anything."

"That's when I found her," Quinn said, continuing where Brittany left off. "She was in a hallway, holding her stomach. This football player came and slushied her while she was standing there," The doctor nodded. He was familiar with the slushy attacks that went on at McKinley High; his son attended the school and had told him of the acts. "She kind of cursed him out under her breath, but he heard her. He backed her against a wall and scared her really badly. After he left, she just sat on the floor and started crying. I took her to the bathroom and helped her clean herself off, and that's when I saw the bruise on her face," she paused for a second. "I asked her about it, but she wouldn't tell me who it was."

"Later, she passed out during class, so I took her to the nurse," Brittany said. "When she woke up, her dad was there to pick her up. She seemed really scared and kept flinching when he talked to her. While she was leaving, she looked at me. I think she was asking for help. I didn't figure everything out until they were already fifteen minutes ahead of me. I went to her house and her dad was leaving. She-she was just lying on the ground…" she couldn't finish the story. The doctor already knew what had happened anyway, based on Santana's injuries. He placed a reassuring hand on Brittany's knee.

"It's going to be okay," Brittany looked up at him with tear filled eyes. "I'm going to contact the police right now. They're going to want to talk to you when they get here, but until then, you can go see Santana if you would like," Brittany nodded. Dr. Carlson smiled softly, "She's in room 349. Just ask one of the nurses to point you in the right direction."

Standing up, Brittany turned to the doctor, "Thank you…for taking care of her."

"Your very welcome," With that, the doctor walked away.

Quinn turned to Brittany and said, "You go see her. She's gonna want to see you more than me. Plus, I'm gonna call the others. Tell them what's going on," the dancer nodded her approval. She flashed Quinn a small smile before walking, in search of a nurse that could tell her where exactly her best friend was.

**What did you guys think? That's not really a cliffhanger, is it? I mean, I don't think it is...So for the choir room scene, I don't really know why I picked Tina to be one of the people who were mad at Rachel for not caring, it just seemed right. Lol I spent twenty minutes searching through random magazines, trying to find a last name for this doctor that wasn't stupid and common. Yeah, I know it's kinda pathetic, but hey, you know it's funny ;) **

**So the plan I originally made for this story has been changed SO much, and I've basically written up to where my general ideas stop, so everything I write from here on out is made up like, as I'm writing...just a heads up for if you see any just random crap that makes no sense scattered throughout the next few chapters. I'm gonna go through and write another plan soon, but in the mean time, just gonna warn you.**

**So next chapter is gonna have Quinn telling the rest of the glee club (actually just Puck, but you get the idea), Brittany possibly talking Santana, and maybe some cops...**

**This might possibly be the longest set of Author's Notes I've ever written in this story, so I'm gonna stop talking now...Review, rate, favorite, anything...you all know what I want, so I'm not even going to bother saying it...Ok, fine I'll say it: EMAILS, EMAILS, EMAILS, I WANT EMAILS! lol sorry, couldn't help myself :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hi peoples! Omg I feel slightly bad right now...I haven't updated in like 3 days...and I haven't even started school yet...ok, anyway, so yesterday I discovered Tumblr...yes, I know im extremely late to this party, but hey, gimme a break. Its like the best thing ever :D I've been on it like non-stop for the past 48 hours, which is kinda sad...I'm becoming more obsessed with it than fanfiction *gasp* lol jk NEVER :P**

**Omg, how many of you have seen the new promo? There was, dare I say it? It's...it's...it's...BRITTANA ARM-LINKAGE! The reason I'm so excited about this (well, there's several reasons): 1. A while back, HeMo did an interview where she said that Brittana probably wouldn't even be explored in season 3 (she trolled us!) and 2. Well, it's just Brittana... Also, there were absolutely no hints of Bartie in the promo AT ALL! :D :D I am quite looking forward to this cafeteria scene/food fight...it looks insanely epic hahaha I really want to know the story behind Quinn's new hair...I find this rather intriguing...it looks insanely awesome though...ok, what's with the a)purple piano and b)piano on fire? UGH, September 20th needs to come faster!**

**Oh, speaking of awesome September dates...my birthday is in a week (well, not really a week now considering it's technically Saturday already, but still) ! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D Yeah, my birthday's on friday. I'm so phsyced. I'm gonna get a streak of my hair dyed dark blue as one of my presents :D it's gonna be so awesome lol yeah my friend talked me into it**

**So, back to what you care about. This chapter has an insane amount of Brittana in it (just warning you now, there is a repeat/you see the same scene in two different perspectives), a very third-wheely Quinn and an extremely angry Puck. Hope you enjoy!**

Brittany walked down the brightly lit hospital corridor. She stopped when she reached the door she was looking for: 349. Taking a deep breath, she reached up and turned the handle slowly. As she pushed the door open, she couldn't help but let out a sharp intake of breath when she saw Santana. The brunette's face was badly bruised in several places and there was a light bandage on the back of her head. Her right wrist was wrapped in a hard cast and the short-sleeved hospital gown revealed dark purple bruises along both of Santana's arm. But what made Brittany's heart shatter was how small and vulnerable the normally strong and fearless girl looked. Even in her sleep, Santana looked so defeated. So un-Santana.

The blonde blinked back the tears that had slowly built up in her eyes. Quietly, she crossed the room and sat down in the chair next to Santana's bed, never once taking her eyes off of her best friend. She gently grabbed Santana's small hand in her own and rubbed back and forth absentmindedly with her thumb.

Why hadn't she noticed something sooner? Why did she just brush everything off like it was nothing? If she had said something before, none of this would have happened. How could she be so stupid? Brittany was furious with herself. She could have saved Santana from this, but instead she just passed it off as nothing. "I'm so sorry, San. I should have noticed sooner. Or said something once I did notice," Brittany said softly, more to herself than to the sleeping Latina next to her. "I could have stopped all of this. I _should _have stopped all of this," she corrected herself. "Artie heard everything when we were talking before. After that, he never left me alone. He didn't want me to talk to you. If I had, I probably have been able to keep you safe," the blonde paused for a moment, eyes trained on the hand she was holding. "This is all my fault." She finished, her voice full of guilt.

"No it's not," Brittany's head shot up upon hearing the weak voice of her best friend. "None of this is your fault." Relief shot through Brittany as she saw her best friend awake.

"Hey," Brittany said softly, a small smile on her face.

"Hi," Santana smiled back lightly, an action that seemed foreign to her. She felt Brittany squeeze her hand softly.

"So, you heard all of that?" Santana nodded. "Well, now I don't have to tell you twice," Brittany half joked. This time, it was Santana's turn to squeeze the hand she was holding.

"You didn't have to say it at all. None of this is your fault," she repeated. Brittany didn't respond.

After a minute or so of silence, Brittany spoke up, "Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice was quiet, gaze still focused on the two hands in front of her.

Santana didn't answer right away. "This," she pointed to herself. "Would probably be you if I had told you. You would be here instead of me."

Brittany stared at her with wide eyes. "San, I-you-" she stuttered. Honestly, she wasn't sure what to say. She felt touched that Santana would do that for her, but at the same time, she felt angry that she was the reason Santana kept getting hurt. Brittany bowed her head, feeling tears starting to prick her eyes again. Santana reached up to cup her cheek.

"Hey, look at me," she said gently to the dancer. Brittany looked up at her with sad eyes. "I'm okay. Everything's going to be okay," A smile found its way onto her face. As convincing as she tried to be, she knew that everything probably wasn't going to be okay. Her father was still out there, her mother was gone and she fucked_up big time when it came to Brittany.

Brittany studied her face carefully. She knew what was going through Santana's mind at the moment. "I know," she paused, unsure of how to say this. "I know about your mom. That she left," Santana stiffened and withdrew her hand. "That's why it started, isn't it? Because she left?" The Latina simply nodded, her hand's fiddling with the hem of the blanket.

"He said that it was my fault," Santana said in a small voice. Brittany felt her heart break even further for her best friend. "That she couldn't stand to be around me anymore…because I'm a slut_and a piece of_shit. I'm starting to think he's right…" She confessed, feeling hot tears start to fall from her eyes. "It's not like I'm exactly the perfect daughter."

"No, sweetie. He's so wrong," Brittany moved closer to Santana, so that they were only about a foot apart. She grabbed both of Santana's hands in hers, making the brunette look up at her. "None of what happened is your fault. It's his fault, not yours," she waited until Santana nodded. The brunette dropped her gaze, not wanting to look Brittany in the eye. "San, look at me," she said gently. Reluctantly, Santana looked up again. Brittany locked eyes with her and said, "Santana, you are perfect. Don't let him or anyone else make you believe anything different. Whatever he told you, whatever bad things he said to you, he's wrong. You are perfect."

Santana didn't know what to say. Never before had anyone said anything that sweet or kind hearted to her. Thankfully, she didn't need to answer. Brittany wrapped her in a careful embrace, as to not hurt her bruises. For the first time in a really long time, Santana felt completely safe. Like everything really was going to be okay. She wrapped her arms around Brittany's back, returning the hug. She let out a content sigh and smiled into Brittany's shoulder.

After what felt like hours, Brittany moved back from the hug. She smiled and moved to sit back down in the chair next to Santana's bed, but Santana grabbed her hand. The brunette looked at Brittany, vulnerability clear on her face. "Would you mind, like…" she trailed off, but Brittany knew what she meant. The blonde nodded, a smile still on her face. Santana smiled and moved over, allowing space for Brittany to be made on the small hospital bed. Brittany climbed onto the bed next to Santana, who immediately placed her head on the tall blonde's shoulder and closed her eyes as Brittany stroked her dark brown hair softly.

A few minutes later, Santana's breathing evened out. Brittany knew that Santana had fallen asleep. She placed a soft kiss to the Latina's forehead and whispered, "I love you." She closed her eyes and leaned her head back onto the bed, unaware that Quinn had been standing in the doorway.

**Rewind to beginning of chapter:**

Quinn took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair as she watched her friend walk across the waiting room. What was she supposed to say to Puck and the others once she called them? They obviously knew that something was up; why else would they be calling so much? She pulled out her phone and walked out of the waiting room. She sat down on a bench and looked at her phone. Puck was calling her. Again. She had to answer this time. Flicking open her phone she pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"

"_Thank God! You finally answered! Where are you?" _Puck asked frantically. Quinn could tell he was freaking out.

"Puck, listen to me-"

"_Quinn, _where are you_?_" he asked more forcefully this time.

The blonde took a deep breath and said, "The hospital." She heard Puck curse.

"_Quinn, you need to give me a yes or no answer to this question,_" Puck said, urgency in his voice. "_Is someone hitting her?"_ Quinn didn't need to ask who he was talking about.

"Yes," the blonde said after a second's hesitation. The line went silent. "Puck?"

"_Wh-who?"_ she could tell Puck's voice was shaking, however she wasn't sure if it was from him about to cry or the anger that was building up inside of him. Either way, she knew that if she told him, he was going to get himself arrested for what he would do to Santana's father.

"Puck, it's not important right now," Quinn tried to reason with him.

"_The hell_it's not important! You're honestly going to just sit there and let this bastard_get away with this?" _

"No, I'm not," the blonde said defensively. "The cops are coming here now to talk to her and figure everything out," she paused for a moment. "Puck, she needs you here, not beating the shit_out of the asshole_that put her here and then getting arrested! Brittany needs you here. She a mess right now! Please Noah." Quinn never called Puck Noah. Only when things were really serious did she call him by anything other than his nickname.

Puck sighed, "_Fine. I'll be there in about ten minutes. Do you want me to bring everyone else?" _

Quinn hesitated before answering, "No, just you. They can come later. Just hurry up and get here. I'll fill you in when you do." The line clicked when Puck hung up. Quinn let out a shaky breath before shoving her phone back into her pocket. She had told Puck to come alone because she knew how close he and Santana were. They were practically brother and sister, if you leave out the friends-with-benefits part. Actually, they were like the same person, just in different bodies. Their personalities were near identical: the hard, I-don't-give-a-fuck_about-anything-or-anyone shell on the outside, and the soft, caring, lovable person on the inside. How they had ever dated was beyond Quinn, considering they never got passed the outer shell (personality-wise) when they were with each other. But after a while, they had come to look out for each other. They were more partners in crime than anything else.

Quinn sighed before walking back into the building, in search of Santana's room. After asking several nurses and receptionist, she was finally able to navigate to Santana's room. The door was open, so she knew that Brittany was probably already in there. She slipped in quietly, not wanting to wake Santana up if she was still asleep. She needed to talk to Brittany before Puck arrived.

However, she stopped moving when she saw the scene before her: Santana was gently cupping Brittany's cheek, a small smile on her face. Quinn took in Santana's appearance and was barely able to stifle the gasp that left her lips. She had been expecting the cast and bandage on her head, but what made Quinn want to cry were the bruises that covered Santana's arms and face. It wasn't right for someone to be hurt like that.

As she watched, Brittany said, "I know…I know about your mom. That she left," Quinn watched as Santana visibly stiffen any drop her hand. Wait, what? Santana's mom had left? "That's why it started, isn't it? Because she left?" Quinn felt her heart lurch when Santana nodded her head. The Latina was avoiding Brittany's gaze, her hands toying with the blanket.

"He said that it was my fault. That she couldn't stand to be around me anymore…because I'm a slut_and a piece of_shit. I'm starting to think he's right…it's not like I'm exactly the perfect daughter." Quinn stood paralyzed by what she had just heard. Santana's father had made her think that she was worthless and didn't matter. He had even made her think that it was her fault her mother had left. If Quinn didn't hate this man with her entire soul before, she sure as hell_did now.

She watched as Brittany moved closer to Santana and took both of her hands, "No, sweetie. He's so wrong. None of what happened is your fault. It's his fault, not yours." After a moment, Santana nodded before dropping her gaze again. "San, look at me," The emotion in Brittany's voice surprised Quinn; it was so full of love and compassion. Santana looked up at Brittany again, eyes full of tears. "Santana, you are perfect. Don't let him or anyone else make you believe anything different. Whatever he told you, whatever bad things he said to you, he's wrong. You are perfect." Even if Quinn had wanted to say something, she wouldn't have been able to. Whatever facts she had about the relationship between those two had just gone out the window. She had known that they shared feelings for each other, but this was on an entirely different level than anything she could have imagined when Santana was involved. This wasn't just "oh, I like you." This was "I love you with all of my heart."

As her mind whizzed at a million miles an hour, she watched as Brittany hugged Santana. Then it dawned on Quinn. _Holy crap. I might possibly be _the _biggest intruder on the history of the planet. _She had just walked in on an extremely personal, intimate moment and had decided to just stay and watch. But as hard as she tried, she couldn't seem to make herself move. Sure, it was kinda creepy, but the scene before her was almost too beautiful to miss. What was even more amazing was that neither Brittany nor Santana had noticed Quinn standing in the doorway, no more than twenty feet away. Their attention was focused solely on each other.

Still wrapped up in her thoughts, she barely even noticed when Brittany climbed into the bed with Santana. The brunette laid her head on Brittany's shoulder and closed her eyes, looking content. For a couple of minutes, Brittany just watched Santana as she stroked her hair softly. She placed a soft kiss on the Latina's forehead and whispered something to Santana that Quinn could barely hear. As the taller blonde leaned her head back, Quinn felt her phone vibrate softly in her pocket. She silently walked out of the room and leaned against the wall as she pulled out her phone.

**Puck (6:09 PM)**

**-im in the waiting room. where r u?-Puckasaurus**

**Oh, I'm eeeevil...lol sorry people, I couldn't help myself. The temptation of leaving a cliffhanger was just too much to resist... ;) lol other than my complete and total evilness, what did you guys think of the chapter? Did I do okay on the same scenario-differnet POV? I've tried to do it before, but it doesn't ever really turn out well...hoping that this is better than before...**

**So next chapter is definately going to have Puck in it and more than likely some cops in it...there's probably going to be more stuff in it, I just haven't really planned that far ahead yet...so yeah, favorite, review, anything...my inbox is getting lonely. It wants more emails please! :) You guys are so awesome! Thanks! If you have any suggestions or anything, shoot me a review and I'll work it in. :) Later peeps!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hola peeps! Soooo, you know a while back when I said that Quinn wasn't going to be getting a significant other in this fic? Weeeelllll...I might possibly have lied...I was writing and I couldn't help myself...there may possibly be Quick in this fic. It's not decided yet, but I'm kinda leaning that way at the moment. The temptation was just too much to resist lol ;)**

**Okay, so last chapter had lots of angsty/sad stuff in it. There's a bunch of that in this chapter, but about half of it is fluff. It was kinda fun to write :) there's both Quick and Brittana fluff in here, but mostly Quick. Hope you enjoy!**

Quinn walked back through the maze of hospital corridors to the waiting room, trying to memorize the way. As she stepped into the waiting room, she saw Puck pacing back and forth in front of an empty row of chairs. Surprisingly, the room was fairly empty. There were only a couple small groups of people sitting together and a few sitting by themselves. As if sensing Quinn's presence, Puck looked up from where he had been staring at the floor. He stopped pacing and locked eyes with Quinn, his face a mixture of worry and anger.

Puck could tell how shaken up the blonde was, even though she tried to hide it. He opened his arms, inviting Quinn in. Without hesitation, she fell into his embrace, allowing his strong arms to wrap around her. They both knew that this should feel awkward, but surprisingly it didn't. It was comforting.

After a minute, Quinn pulled away. Puck looked at her and asked, "How is she?"

"She could be worse," the blonde said as they both sat down. "We got lucky, I guess. There's no permanent damage, so that's a good thing." She looked up at Puck, who had returned his eyes to the floor.

"What happened?" The mohawed boy asked, his voice full of hurt and anger. Quinn retold the events of that day for what felt like the hundredth time. When she reached the part about Santana's father, she watched as Puck's face reflected a look of hatred and fury, but he kept quiet. She explained why she had left in the middle of glee club.

"When I got here, Brittany was sitting in here crying. Her clothes and her hands were all covered in blood. She told me that she had tried to make Santana's head stop bleeding, but she couldn't," Quinn felt like she was going to cry again as she continued. "The doctor came out and told us about her injuries," she felt Puck stiffen slightly next to her. This is what he had been dreading hearing; just how badly Santana really was hurt. "She's got a broken wrist, a few broken ribs, a concussion and a lot of bruising on her stomach, arms and legs. It could be worse, but that doesn't mean it's particularly good." As she finished, she watched as Puck closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to process everything he had just been told. After a while, he stood up and started walking towards the exit.

Extremely confused, Quinn asked, "Where are you going?"

Without even turning around, Puck answered, "To find that_asshole. He's not going to get away with this."

Realizing Puck's intentions, Quinn caught up to him and grabbed his shoulder, turning him around. "Puck, please don't do this. Going and beating the shit_out of him isn't going to solve anything. You are needed _here_. Santana _needs_ you." She pleaded with Puck. At the mention of Santana, Puck's hardened expression softened slightly.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Finally, Puck gave in. "Fine," Quinn let out a relieved sigh. "Can I see her though?" he asked quietly. Quinn smiled at him.

"Yeah, sure," she said. "C'mon," turning around, she led him through the hospital corridors to Santana's room. When they reached the room in question, Quinn turned to Puck and said, "Brittany's in there right now, but I doubt that she'll mind you being in there. I don't know if Santana's still asleep or not." She pushed open the door that had been closed since the last time she was in this room and heard Puck curse quietly when he saw Santana.

She and Brittany were still in the same positions they had been when Quinn left the room, only now Brittany's head was resting lightly on Santana's. Quinn smiled when she saw the two sleeping girls in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Puck do the same thing. Quietly, Puck murmured, "So you know about them?" He never took his eyes away from the pair.

Quinn was surprised. Puck knew? How did Puck know? "Uh, yeah," she said hesitantly. "Brittany told me. How do you know?"

Puck chuckled softly, "When you know Santana well enough, it's not exactly that hard to miss," he paused. "I've known for a while."

Quinn wasn't really sure what to say. When she thought about it, it did make sense that Puck already knew. He wasn't as dumb as everyone thought, at least not when it came to people. He had good instincts. "You think we should wake them up?"

Puck shook his head, "Nah. Let 'em sleep. After the day they've had, they need it," he looked over at Quinn. "I think you do, too," the blonde opened her mouth to protest. "Don't even _try _and tell me that you're fine, 'cuz you're not. Try and get some shut eye before the cops show up. After that, everything's probably gonna go to_hell, so you might as well sleep now," he ignored Quinn's pout and nodded his head towards one of the empty chairs next to Santana's bed. "Go." He said.

"I hate you," she said jokingly as she walked over to the chair and sat down.

Puck chuckled and said, "Yeah, I know." With that, he sent Quinn one last smile and closed the door as he walked out. Quinn shook her head and laughed quietly. She had forgotten just how caring Puck could be. He really was a good guy, he just pretended to be a badass_all the time. Taking one last look at her two best friends, she closed her eyes. Within two minutes, she was asleep.

* * *

><p>Quinn woke up to someone gently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see Puck standing over her, a sly grin on his face. "Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," he joked. Quinn punched him lightly on the arm. He feigned hurt and said, "Well, that's no way to treat your prince." Quinn laughed.<p>

"Shut up," she said with a smile on her face. Sitting up, she saw that Santana and Brittany were still asleep. "How long was I asleep?"

Puck shrugged, "I don't know. About an hour and a half, I think. You drool, by the way," he teased Quinn, a playful smirk on his face. Quickly, Quinn wiped at her mouth. He laughed and turned his attention back to the sleeping girls next to him. "They really do fit together, don't they?" he asked no one in particular. Quinn couldn't help but agree. "Did you hear that Britt and Artie broke up?" This was news to Quinn.

"Um, no. I've kinda been busy for the past few hours. What happened?"

"Artie said that Brittany was going to go talk to Santana after school, but he thought she was just blowing him off. Apparently, he overreacted and Britt got mad at him. I doubt that's what actually happened though, but I know it's got something to do with Santana." Puck said, turning back to Quinn, who was still trying to process this new development.

"How do you know it's got something to do with Santana?" Quinn asked curiously.

Puck dropped his gaze to the floor. "Artie said that he knew something was wrong with Santana because of something Brittany said to him when they broke up," Quinn looked at him expectantly. "She said that she thought Santana was going to kill herself." Quinn's jaw practically hit the floor. Sure, that's what they had thought before Quinn had talked to Santana, but she didn't think that Brittany would tell anyone else.

"Who else knows? Like, about any of this?" Quinn asked. The last thing Santana needed were rumors starting to fly.

"Just the glee club. I know what you're worried about. I doubt any of them would say anything, though. At least to other people," he paused, taking in Quinn's relieved look. "But, people are still gonna find out though. You know that, right? This isn't exactly the smallest secret to keep."

Quinn nodded, "Yeah, I know. I just don't want rumors that aren't true floating around. That's probably the last thing Santana needs right now." The two went silent.

Puck spoke up after some time. "Well, the cops got here about half an hour ago. They've been talking to the doctor and the nurses, but I just thought that I should come wake you guys up. They're gonna want to talk." Quinn nodded her understanding and stood up.

Gently, she placed a hand on Brittany's shoulder. "Britt, c'mon. Time to wake up," she said softly. Slowly, Brittany's eyes opened. The taller blonde used the hand that wasn't currently wrapped around Santana to rub her eyes. After a moment, she looked around to see Quinn standing next to her and Puck sitting on the edge of one of the chairs.

"Hey guys," she said.

"Hey B," said Puck, a small smile on his face. "You okay?" he asked when he saw Brittany shift uncomfortably.

Brittany smiled at Puck and said, "Yeah, my arm's just asleep," Both Quinn and Puck let out a sound of amusement. "How long were we asleep?"

Quinn answered, "A little more than two hours, I think. You fell asleep before me," the blonde looked at Santana. "The police got here a little while ago. They're gonna want to talk to San."

Brittany nodded and turned to look at Santana. The brunette looked so peaceful. It almost hurt Brittany to think that she had to take away that peacefulness by waking her up. She leaned her head down and whispered in Santana's ear. "Sweetie, you've gotta get up," Santana groaned her disapproval, making Brittany smile. "Saaan," she said in a sing-song voice.

"Five more minutes," Santana mumbled into Brittany's neck, barely understandable. Brittany, Quinn and Puck all chuckled at Santana's response. It was regular Santana back again for the moment. Brittany smirked, knowing how to get Santana up.

"Wake up, or I'll get Lord Tubbington," she whispered into Santana's ear. Immediately, Santana's eyes shot open.

"I'm up!" she said, making everyone laugh. Looking around, she remembered where she was. "Aw, that was messed up Britt. You can't even bring a cat into a hospital!"

"Yeah, I know. But you wouldn't get up," Brittany said, a wide smile on her face.

Santana noticed that Quinn and Puck were both in her room. She had expected Quinn to be there, but was a little surprised when she saw Puck. Locking eyes with him, she said, "So, I'm assuming you know now, right?" Puck nodded. "Blondie told you?" she nodded her head in Quinn's direction. Puck smirked at Quinn's nickname and nodded.

"The cops got here a little bit ago. They wanna talk to you." Santana stilled at the mention of the police. This was really happening. She had known that she was going to have to talk to the police eventually, but now that the reality of that was right in front of her face, Santana was terrified. What if they didn't believe her? What if her father was able to lie his way out of suspicion? What if-Santana was pulled from her thoughts when she felt Brittany squeeze her hand.

"San? What's wrong?" she asked, worried.

"Huh? N-nothing. I'm fine," Santana said, stuttering slightly. Quinn was looking at her, a thoughtful expression on her face.

As if she had read Santana's mind, Quinn said, "They're going to believe you. He's not going to get away with this." Santana nodded, trying to make herself believe Quinn's words.

"But what if he's able to lie his way out of all this? I mean, it's just his word against mine," Santana said, averting her eyes from Quinn.

Puck spoke up, "No, it's yours, Quinn's and Brittany's word against his. Not to mention your injuries. How is he supposed to explain those?" he asked rhetorically.

Santana hesitated for a minute before speaking. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't apologize. There's nothing for you to be sorry for," Brittany said to her. The blonde squeezed Santana's hand a final time before moving her numb arm from behind the Latina and climbing out of the bed. "I'll be right back." She said to Santana before walking towards the bathroom.

"Hey, B," Puck said, making Brittany turn around. He pulled out a drawstring bag from under his chair and tossed it in Brittany's direction, which the blonde caught easily. "I brought you some clothes. Thought you might need it," Upon seeing Brittany raise an eyebrow, he explained. "No, I didn't break into your house. I went there earlier and told your mom what was going on. She wanted to come, but I told her that Santana was sleeping. She got some clothes for you and stuff. She's gonna come by later, though."

Brittany smiled and gave Puck a quick hug. "Thank you," she whispered to him before going into the small bathroom. Santana watched her go with a smile on her face.

When the door closed she turned to Puck. "When exactly did you turn into a man? 'Cuz I think I missed that monumental occasion." She joked, a smirk on her face. Puck just shrugged.

"It's okay. I've been wondering the same thing," Quinn said to Santana. "So, how are you feeling?"

Santana shrugged, "I've definitely been better," Quinn nodded sadly. "Hey, don't go feeling sorry for me. 'Cuz then I _will_ kick your_ass." She said to the blonde. Quinn chuckled.

"Yeah, right." Santana smiled at this. She had forgotten how amusing Quinn was to be around.

Santana looked away from Quinn when she heard the bathroom door open. Out stepped Brittany, wearing the clothes Puck had brought. "How is it even humanly possible that you changed that fast?" the Latina asked in amazement. Brittany had only been in the bathroom for three minutes, yet she had changed, fixed her hair and washed off any traces of blood that had been left.

Brittany smirked as she sat down next to Santana. "I'm magical," she teased the still amazed brunette. Santana was about to comment when she heard a knock on the door. All four of their heads turned as the door opened, revealing two uniformed police officers.

"Hello Santana. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

**Bum bum bum! Evilness has returned lol **

**What did you guys think? So, I had Quinn not knowing about Brittany and Artie's break up just because in the hour and a half/two hours between the first choir room scene and the second, Quinn and Brittany probably would have been in different classes. Besides, both of them had a lot more important things on their minds than the break up. I don't know. I just thought it would make sense if Quinn didn't know already. **

**How was the fluff part? I'm not very good at writing fluff, so this was a trial and error type of chapter, I guess. I really like Quick, so I just couldn't help but put some in. **

**So next chapter: cops, probably more Quick, definitely more Brittana, possibly Brittany's mom interaction.**

**Well, favorite, review, anything. I've like barely gotten any emails today, so it'll make me happy if I get some :) hope you guys are having an awesome labor day weekend! **

**Oh, i almost forgot. Tumblr stuff. So, I'm still trying to figure everything out, but my url is bballnerd09 . tumblr . com. I couldn't think of any other names, so I just went with what i already had lol let me know if any of you guys are on tumblr and i'll add you! Plus, if there's any really good pages, let me know. Thanks! :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Ok, so I know that the majority of you probably hate me with most of your beings right now, but hear me out. School has been so ridiculously busy, it's not even close to being funny. On top of that, my two best friends started dating (third wheel much?) and neither of their parents know, so anytime they want to go on a date/hang out, I'm kinda obligated to go with them...fun, but incredibly awkward sometimes...anyway, this chapter has been half written for the past, what, three months? Wow...I'm a horrible evil person. Ok, I give you all permission to kill me (not really. I don't really want to die). But yeah, I finally finished writing this because it's Thanksgiving break (btw, the last time i updated, it was summer break...) and I spent six hours in a car driving to West Virginia listening to 50 bucks worth of Glee music. **

**omg I'm so happy because I finally got the curse filter thing off of my computer for good! So you guys won't have to be annoyed anymore lol **

**Ok, so I got a new tumblr cuz some people from my school found me (scary thought, right?). So my new URL is hypernarwhal. tumblr. com. Follow me, and I'll be a happy person :) Ok, so on to the story! Hope you like!**

Santana felt the smile slide off her face as she watched the officers cross the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Brittany step towards the bed protectively. At any other time, the gesture would have made her smile, but now, all she could do was blink as her heart hammered in her chest.

This was it. There was no way to back out now.

"Hi Santana," the offer repeated softly. He looked about fifty years old, but he was tall and well built, as if age hadn't impacted him at all. His face seemed gentle, more like a concerned father than a police officer. "My name is Officer Lawson and this is my partner, Officer Woodrow," he gestured to the man next to him. Unlike his partner, Officer Woodrow seemed much younger, maybe thirty-five, and was thinner. His face was void of emotion. "We wanted to ask you some questions."

Santana nodded hesitantly, silently giving them permission. Her gaze was fixed on the crisp, white blanket on her lap. Brittany, Puck and Quinn looked at her, concern covering their features. The taller blonde squeezed Santana's hand gently. The brunette could feel all of their eyes on her.

Officer Lawson cleared his throat, "Do you remember what happened?"

Santana nodded. "My dad…h-he picked me up early. I um, I passed out during class," she paused and took a shaky breath. "I knew that he was already mad, but it was worse than usual. We got home and he started screaming. He thought that I had told someone. He kept hitting me. I tried to get him to stop, but he shoved me and my head hit something. That's the last thing I remember." Santana finished, her voice barely even a whisper.

Brittany's heart broke as she listened to her best friend. She could feel tears prick her eyes at the image of Santana lying on the floor, unconscious and bloody, but she blinked them back. She couldn't cry. Not now.

Puck watched helplessly as a lone tear slid down Santana's face. He wished he could make all of this just go away. That he could take away all of Santana's pain and make it so none of this ever happened. But he couldn't. There was nothing he could do. Oh, how he wanted to go and beat the shit out of Santana's father, but Quinn was right; that wasn't going to solve anything.

"How long has this been happening?" Officer Lawson asked.

Quinn was pretty sure she already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from Santana. It seemed impossible how much had happened to her in such a short amount of time. "Almost three weeks," When she said it out loud, she felt weak. It had only taken her father less than three weeks to break her into nothing. "When my mom left, he just lost it. Whenever he was home, he was always drunk. He said that it was my fault she left." She held Brittany's hand in a vice like grip, as if that was the only thing keeping her grounded.

"Had he every hit you before this?" Officer Woodrow asked as his partner wrote something in his notepad. Santana shook her head. "How often did he hit you after this started?"

"Every night." Santana answered in a voice so small, it could have been questionable whether or not she had actually answered.

Taking a small step closer to the bed, Officer Lawson asked, "Santana, did he ever rape you?"

Brittany felt her chest constrict at the question. _No, please no. _The grip Santana had on her hand was starting to turn painful, but she didn't care. She feared the worst possible answer as she watched Santana. For a split second, the brunette did nothing. When she finally shook her head, Brittany let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was keeping in as relief washed over her like a tidal wave.

"We're going to be looking for him. He's not going to get away with this, Santana," Officer Lawson said reassuringly as he pulled something out of his pocket. Handing her his business card, he said, "If you ever need anything, just call," he turned to Brittany and asked, "Can I speak with you for a moment?"

Brittany's eyebrow scrunched together in confusion, but she released her hand from Santana's and followed the officers out into the hallway. "I talked to the medics who brought her here. They said that it was you who found her," Brittany nodded in confirmation. "What happened today?"

Brittany retold the events of the day for the second time, leaving out the part where she kissed Santana. When she finished, she was struggling to hold back tears.

The officers hadn't said a word as they listened to the blonde speak. When she finished, Officer Woodrow asked, "What was she doing differently that made you approach her?"

"She-uh, she'd been dressing weirdly for a little while. She stopped talking to everyone and lost a lot of weight. I hadn't talked to her in a while, though, because we got into a fight." The blonde hung her head. Officer Woodrow nodded his understanding.

"Do you know if anything like this has happened before?"

Brittany shook her head, "Never. If it did, Santana didn't tell me," she shook her head again to herself. "He just always seemed so…nice. I don't understand how he could do this." Brittany confessed, her eyes focused on a doorway behind Officer Woodrow.

Officer Lawson gave her a sad smile and placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's going to be okay. We're going to find him and he's never going to hurt Santana again. I promise." The older man had nothing but sincerity and reassurance on his face. For some reason, Brittany believed him.

He handed Brittany his card and turned to leave with his partner. As he walked away, a thought came to the dancer. "Wait!" Officer Lawson and Officer Woodrow turned. "He works here. I-I think he might try and get to her."

Officer Woodrow stepped forward, "Don't worry. We already informed the staff that if they see him to call us immediately. She's going to be safe." Brittany nodded, not thoroughly convinced.

"Thank you." Officer Lawson just nodded, a small smile on his face. As Brittany watched them retreat through the hallway, she leaned her back against the wall. She closed her eyes and let herself slide down the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest. Resting her head on her knees, she tried to think back to before everything went to hell. It really wasn't that long ago. No, that's not true. Things had been bad for a while. Honestly, Brittany wasn't really sure when things went awfully wrong, but ever since Brittany started dating Artie, she and Santana hadn't been as close as they had been. The downwards spiral of their friendship started there and just got steeper and steeper the more time went by. And then they sang Landslide. And Brittany rejected Santana. That must have been the breaking point between them.

As Brittany thought over all of her mistakes, she tried to block out the rest of the hospital-the world, really. If she hadn't rejected Santana, she wouldn't have been avoiding her. If she hadn't have been avoiding her, she would have noticed that something was wrong. If she had noticed that something was wrong, she would have been able to stop all of this. Even though Santana had told her that this wasn't her fault, she knew that it was. She hadn't even realized that Santana's mom had walked out when she _was _talking to Santana. How could she not notice something as big as that? _God, I'm so stupid! _she yelled at herself in her head.

Feeling a gentle hand on her shoulder, she looked up. Her mother was kneeling beside her, concerned sadness plainly showing on her face. Looking at Mrs. Pierce, it would be obvious to anyone that she was Brittany's mother; she had the same long blonde hair and her eyes were a startling blue, just like Brittany's. She was about an inch taller than her daughter but had the same kind expression. Her heart was even bigger than Brittany's, if that was possible. She loved Santana as if she were her own daughter, which she basically was. It pained her so much to hear that someone had hurt Santana, but it hurt so much more to hear that it was her own father.

Mrs. Pierce pulled her daughter into a tight hug. Brittany was shaking, "Shh…It's okay," she cooed softly.

Brittany shook her head. "No it's not, mom. It's my fault. I let this happen to her," Brittany said into her mother's shoulder as tears trailed down her face, soaking into her mother's shirt. "I should have realized it earlier. I believed her when she lied to me."

"Look at me," Mrs. Pierce said. Reluctantly, Brittany looked up. "This _is not _your fault," Brittany looked like she was going to interrupt, but her mother cut her off. "No, don't. You didn't know this was going on. There was nothing that you could have done to stop him from hurting her."

The younger girl didn't say anything. She knew her mother was right, but she still couldn't help but feel guilty. "Come on," Mrs. Pierce said, pulling Brittany to her feet. "Santana needs you right now. Probably more than she's willing to admit," When Brittany averted her eyes as if she was hiding something (or trying to), Mrs. Pierce smiled. "I know, by the way," For the second time that day, Brittany was speechless. Just how obvious were they? She looked at her mother, her jaw about half way to the floor. The older blonde just chuckled. "Years of sleepovers seemed to give me an insight that I'm not really sure I wanted to have. You two aren't exactly the quietest of people," Brittany blushed furiously and looked down embarrassed. "I'm happy for you. I'm glad that you both found each other. Most people aren't as lucky as you two to find love so young. Now, let's get in there." Brittany nodded.

Slowly, Brittany opened the door to Santana's room, her mother trailing behind her. Santana had obviously been crying, but had stopped. Quinn was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Santana's hand. Puck was still sitting on the edge of the hospital chair, having a staring contest with the floor. When Santana looked up, she noticed Mrs. Pierce standing behind her best friend. Immediately, she looked down, not wanting the woman she had come to regard almost as her mother to see her so broken.

Puck and Quinn shared a glace and reached a silent conclusion. The shorter blonde let go of Santana's hand and stood up as Puck stood up from his spot on the chair. "Hey, I've gotta go. My mom has work tonight and I've gotta watch my little sister," Puck said softly to Santana, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'll come by tomorrow. I promise." He walked over to Santana and kissed her gently on the forehead, careful of the bandage.

Quinn did the same and whispered to Santana, "It's going to be okay. Just let them in." She started walking out with Puck and hugged Brittany on the way out. With one last squeeze of Brittany's hand, she and Puck were gone.

Mrs. Pierce was still watching Santana, whose head was bent, avoiding eye contact. Never before in the ten years that she had known Santana had Mrs. Pierce seen the girl look so defeated. The normally feisty and vocal girl was now still and silent. She looked so small and vulnerable, as if she would break if anyone touched her. "Santana," she said softly, moving closer to the hospital bed. A streak of silent tears was leaking out of the brunette's eyes. "Oh honey, it's okay." Taking up Quinn's former position on the bed, Mrs. Pierce grabbed Santana's hand and rubbed back and forth gently over the knuckles with her thumb.

Never taking her eyes off of Santana, Brittany moved to sit in the chair on the other side of the bed. All three of them were silent, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Santana was quietly trying to stop crying, to no avail. With a loving touch, Mrs. Pierce pushed a stray strand of hair out of Santana's face. The brunette flinched and tried to move away. "It's okay, sweetie. I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe now." Any progress of stopping Santana's tears had just been reversed; the girl broke down in sobs at the older woman's words. Immediately, Mrs. Pierce pulled Santana into her, rubbing soft circles on her back.

Looking over Santana's head, Mrs. Pierce locked eyes with her daughter. Neither of them wanted to think about how hard this was going to be on Santana in the next few days-weeks, probably. But no matter what, neither of them, nor Puck or Quinn, were going anywhere.

**What did you guys think? I know I probably don't deserve reviews because of how long it's been since I updated, but pretty please? With a cherry on top? Pleeeeeaaaassseeee? My inbox is currently full of emails from teachers about assignments and random youtube videos...so not even close to kidding...so please review and if you're on tumblr, follow me...or don't. It's your call. But pretty please. so favorite, follow, and review. I think that's it...bye peoples! :D i hope you guys liked it**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hola peoples! 'kay, so I know it's been a month since I've updated (exactly, which wasn't intentional, by the way) so I know a lot of you are probably mad at me, but hey, it's almost christmas! So please don't kill me, cuz I enjoy Christmas very much. If you don't celebrate Christmas, still please don't kill me cuz I like Christmas. **

**I've been sick (and on winter break) for the past week and right now, it feels like I've swallowed a chainsaw. I've been playing video games and stuff. I actually beat Assassin's Creed Revelations and I'm about half way through Modern Warfare 3 and InFamous 2. I'm so proud of myself! lol **

**So, I rewrote this chapter 2 times because the first time, I didn't really like how it ended and the second time, I didn't like the middle, but then I combined the good middle from the first one and the good ending from the second one to get the third one. wow that was a really long sentence. Anyway, this chapter is focused on Quinn and Puck, but mostly Puck. Hope you guys like it! :D**

As Quinn and Puck walked through the white hospital corridors, they could sense the tension flowing throughout the hospital. The majority of the staff had worked with Dr. Lopez at one point in time or another and it came as a shock to all of them that he had become so violent. The even greater shock than that was the fact that he had done this to his daughter, whom he had talked about with admiration and pride in the past. None of them had ever spoken to Santana; when she would occasionally come by the hospital to talk to her father, she mostly kept to herself and left soon afterwards.

The two teenagers walked to the parking lot in silence, neither having anything to say. When they reached Puck's truck, Puck turned to Quinn and asked, "What do we do now?"

Quinn thought a moment before answering, "I don't know. I guess we talk to everyone else," The mohawked boy nodded, unsure. "They do already know, right? I thought you said before that they did,"

"Well, they kinda know. I sort of ran out of the choir room without explaining. I mean, they know that she's here, they just don't know why." Puck explained. Leaning on the driver's side door, Quinn nodded her understanding.

"Do you think that we should tell them?" the blonde asked, confusing Puck. "I just mean that it might not be our place to tell everyone. San might not want everyone to know. She's got this stupid pride thing," she elaborated.

Puck shook his head, "No, I think we should tell them. They're gonna find out one way or another, so we might as well just tell them. I doubt that they would tell anyone else, if that's what you're worried about," Still sensing Quinn's hesitation, he added, "Hey, it's better if we tell them what's going on rather than if they go around and guess wrong."

Finally, Quinn nodded her agreement. "You're right. But I'm just going to text them. I just can't deal with them right now." She pulled out her phone and sent a mass text to the entire glee club.

**-santana's in the hospital. it was her dad. cops cant find him. dont come and DONT TELL ANYONE. please. –Q.**

Almost immediately, her phone began to vibrate from the texts and calls that she was receiving. She turned it off and shoved it into her pocket, not wanting to deal with everyone right now. Exhausted, she leaned against the side of Puck's truck and closed her eyes, trying to compose herself. Puck stepped towards her, a concerned look on his face. "How are you holding up?"

Taking a deep breath, Quinn opened her eyes to look at Puck. "I'm fine. I mean, I can't really complain about anything right now. Considering…" she trailed off quietly as she averted her eye's from the boy's.

Puck stepped closer to the blonde. "You know, it's not complaining to say that you're _not _okay."

"But nothing even happened to me. I wasn't even there!" Quinn said, frustrated with herself.

Puck studied her for a moment. "Is that what's getting to you? That you weren't there?"

Letting out a shaky breath, Quinn said, "I'm supposed to be one of her best friends, right? So why wasn't I there? Why didn't I do something in time to save her?" She was yelling now. "What kind of friend am I if I let her suffer alone with this? Why wasn't I there?" She finished as Puck pulled her into a tight, comforting embrace. Instantly, she felt tears begin to drip down her face and onto Puck's shirt.

"Shh. It's okay," he cooed, trying to comfort her. "I've got you. Come on, I'll drive you home." Quinn didn't protest—she knew that there was no way she could drive right now.

The car ride to Quinn's house was spent in a comfortable silence. The only sound was from the hum of the pickup truck's engine. When they reached Quinn's house, she turned to Puck and said, "Thanks for being there. It really did help, I think," she studied him for a minute and then smiled. ""Who would have thought that Noah Puckerman had actually grown up? I'm impressed. You're taking care of everyone: San, Britt, me. Where was this man last year?"

Puck just shrugged. He didn't really know why he suddenly felt like he needed to take responsibility for things. He'd never done so before. Actually, he was starting to do some of his homework, too. In geometry, he had raised his grade from a D+ to a B-. It wasn't that he was dumb, he just didn't care before.

"Well, it's awesome to see. I'm proud of you," Quinn said. Quietly, her watch beeped, signaling nine o'clock. "Hey, don't you have to go babysit you're sister?"

Puck shook his head, "Nah. I could just tell they just needed some time alone," Quinn nodded her understanding. "I'll pick you up tomorrow, 'kay? You know, so you can get your car and stuff."

"Yeah, I wanted to go see San tomorrow and my mom's out of town. Thanks again, Puck. It really does mean a lot to me."

Puck smiled at her. "If you need anything, just call. My phone's always on." He didn't just mean for tonight; he meant always. If she ever needed anyone to talk to, his door would always be open. Understanding what he meant, Quinn smiled.

She opened the car door and stepped out. Puck watched her as she walked up her front step and unlocked the door. He waited until she was safely inside to put his truck in gear again.

As he drove home, he turned up the radio in his truck, trying to rid his mind of the events that happened earlier. But no matter how loud he played the music, the image of a broken and beaten Santana just would not get out of his head. She was like his sister in a weird way. They knew each other front to back, which actually kind of scared him.

When Puck reached a stop light, he slammed his hand down on the steering wheel. He wasn't sure if the frustration was caused by the stop light or everything else that had happened today. Probably a combination of both. He watched as some drunken idiot staggered his way across the intersection and into the park. Why the hell was he going into a park? Whatever.

As Puck drove away, something was nagging at him in the back of his mind. Why did that guy look so familiar? Maybe he'd seen him at a bar somewhere before—he frequented enough to recognize the regulars. Then it hit him. That drunken idiot was Santana's father. Puck jerked his wheel to the left, making a U-turn. He was lucky that the street was mostly empty or else he probably would have gotten himself killed.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. When the operator answered, Puck told him that he had seen Santana's father and where he was. Hanging up, Puck pulled up to the curb and jumped out. Mr. Lopez was sitting on a park bench looking at the playground about fifty yards away. Puck recognized this park. When they were younger, Santana would occasionally play with him here. But mostly, she spent her time here with Brittany and Quinn (but mostly Brittany).

Furious, Puck walked over to the bench. "Hey, asshole!" he yelled, causing Mr. Lopez to shoot him a dangerous glare. "Your daughter's in the hospital. _Because of you!"_ Mr. Lopez stood from his spot on the bench, suddenly seeming much more sober than he really was. "How does it feel, beating someone that you know is weaker than you? Someone younger and smaller than you? What about beating _your daughter?" _

"The whore deserved it! She's the reason I'm alone now! That dyke made my wife leave me. She deserved it!" Mr. Lopez yelled.

Finally, Puck snapped. He charged at Mr. Lopez, tackling him. Punching him in the nose, Puck spat, "No she didn't, you bastard!" He punched Mr. Lopez several times before the older man violently shoved Puck off of him. Taking advantage of this, he moved and punched Puck in the eye. He stood up quickly and delivered a kick to Puck's stomach. Two more kicks were delivered before Puck grabbed Mr. Lopez's foot, causing the man to lose his balance and fall. Puck took his opening and began punching Mr. Lopez anywhere he could reach. As he punched, he said, "What? You only fight dirty? Can't say that I'm surprised, really."

Suddenly, two strong arms pulled him away from the now bloody man next to him. He looked back to see the same man from the hospital, Officer Lawson. "Hey, come on. Calm down. We've got him from here." When he was sure Puck wasn't going to try and continue, he released him and went to join the four other officers, one of whom was now placing Mr. Lopez in handcuffs.

Puck sat in the grass, breathing heavily. The orange glow from the street lamps that illuminated the playground mixed eerily with the red and blue lights that shone from the two police cars parked near Puck's truck. As two of the officers pushed Mr. Lopez into one of the cop cars, Officer Lawson walked over to Puck, who had leveled out his breathing. His stomach hurt a little bit and he could feel his eye beginning to form a bruise, but the pain wasn't that bad. Lawson held out a small bag of ice, which Puck waved off.

The officer sat down next to Puck, arms stretched out over his bent knees. For a few minutes, the two sat in silence. "So, what happened here?" Lawson asked softly, breaking the silence.

Puck took a deep breath and said, "I was on my way home and I saw him. He was drunk. It looked like he'd just come out of a bar. I didn't realize it was him at first. When I did, I followed him here. Started sayin' some stuff that pissed him off."

"What kind of stuff?" Officer Lawson asked as he jotted something down in his notebook.

"Stuff about Santana. I asked how he could do that to her. She's his daughter and she's so much smaller than him. It's just not right. He just…he said that she deserved it. Called her a bunch of horrible stuff. I don't know, I guess I just snapped."

Lawson nodded in understanding. Honestly, if he had been in Puck's position, he would have done the exact same thing. "Santana's lucky to have a friend like you. You did the right thing," He stood up and offered Puck a hand. As Puck stood, he brushed the dirt off of himself and straightened his shirt. "You need a ride somewhere?" Lawson asked.

Puck shook his head. "No, thanks. I've got my truck." He shook the older man's hand and walked towards his pickup. After he got in, he grabbed his phone from where it still sat in his center console and dialed a familiar number. On the third ring, Quinn answered.

"_Hello?" _She answered, her voice groggy. She'd obviously been sleeping.

"They got him," Puck said simply.

"_What?" _Quinn asked, obviously more awake. "_Do you mean…?"_

"Yeah. It's over."

**What did you guys think? So, I think next chapter is definitely gonna have Brittany and Santana in it, probably some Mrs. Pierce, but nothing is set in stone yet. Santana's definitely gonna find out that her dad's been arrested, though. **

**Review, favorite, follow, anything that will give me emails! Emails are my christmas presents! If you give me one, I will be so so so so so so so happy! :D :D I'm also on tumblr. My url is hypernarwhal. tumblr. com. Following me on tumblr also gives me emails, by the way ;) **

**If you celebrate christmas, Merry Christmas! If you celebrate hanukkha, Happy Hanukkha! If you celebrate anything else, Happy Holidays and a very awesome New Year! :D 3**


	14. Chapter 14

**Sooooo, how many of you hate me right now? I know I've been AWOL for a few (three) months, but there's been all sorts of shit that's gone down in the past three months. Like, crazy ass, life changing shit. Not even close to kidding. There's been some major soul searching. Anyway, I've rewritten this chapter about four times because every time I finish, I got back and reread, and it's actually complete crap. I wrote half of this final version tonight at the movies on my phone while watching Hunger Games for the third time. That movie's awesome, by the way. But yeah...(btw it's like 2 in the morning and I'm really tired, so please excuse me if I'm being really weird)**

**Thank you so much, Breakdown6, aka glee-southwriter on tumblr, for motivating me and actually getting me to write this chapter. You're awesome!**

**I hope you guys like it!**

Quinn paced her living room anxiously, twirling the golden cross that hung around her neck between her fingers. It had been forty-five minutes since she had gotten off of the phone with Puck, but he still hadn't shown up. He hadn't told her exact details over the phone; all she knew was that the cops had taken Santana's father into custody and that Puck had something to do with it. _Of course. He _always_ has something to do with it_, Quinn thought.

She raced to the door when she heard the knock and flung it open. Puck was standing with his hands in his pockets. His eye was turning a deep purple and the knuckles sticking out of his jean pockets were red and raw. Without hesitation, Quinn grabbed his arm and dragged him into the house. He didn't protest when she pointed to the couch in the living room, indicating for him to sit.

As Quinn walked into the kitchen, Puck examined the living room of the Fabray household. It didn't look any different than it had a year and a half ago, the last time he had been here. He cringed internally at the memory.

A few moments later, Quinn walked back into the living room with an ice pack in her hand. Wordlessly, she handed it to Puck and sat down beside him. They sat together in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Puck spoke. "I passed by the park on my way home. Santana's dad was there, drunk off his ass. I called the cops and started talking to him. Well, yelling, really. That pissed him off. He started talking shit about San, and I just snapped. Next thing I knew, that cop from the hospital was pulling me off of him. Wish he hadn't, though. I could have gotten a few more punches in," He pressed the ice pack to his dark eye and winced. "That bastard kept saying that she deserved it. While she was sitting in the hospital _because of him_, he was getting drunk and feeling proud of himself!"

"It's okay now, though. The cops got him. _You _got him. San won't get hurt anymore because _you _got that asshole," Quinn said, trying to keep him from screaming and waking up her mom. "She's safe now. There's no way that they're going to let him get away with this," Puck simply nodded. "What took you so long to get here?"

Puck shrugged, "I had some stuff to think about."

Realizing she wasn't going to get a better answer, Quinn stood up. "I'm gonna go call Britt."

* * *

><p>Brittany sat next to a sleeping Santana on her hospital bed, softly stroking her best friend's hair while being careful to avoid the bandage. Santana had fallen asleep in Mrs. Pierce's arms ten minutes ago, completely drained. Mrs. Pierce watched the two girls from one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs. The two always took care of each other when they needed it. They had always been that way. This was no exception.<p>

"What happens now?" Brittany asked quietly, breaking the long silence.

Mrs. Pierce sighed, "I don't know. Child Protective Services will probably put Santana into foster care until she turns eighteen. Beyond that, I really don't know."

"What about us? Can't she stay with us?"

"It's not that simple, Britt. There's-," Mrs. Pierce began to say.

"Mom, _please. _There has to be _something _you can do," Brittany pleaded. "She won't turn eighteen for another eight months. I don't want her to be all by herself for that long. She's not as strong as everyone thinks she is. _Please, _mom."

Running a hand through her hair, Mrs. Pierce said, "Britt, I'll try. But I don't know how much I can do. If I jump through a few legal hoops, I might be able to get her to stay with us, but I don't know…" She trailed off.

Brittany bit her bottom lip nervously, a habit she picked up from Santana. "Thanks, mom," She turned her attention back to the sleeping girl in her arms. Santana was curled into Brittany's side, her breath tickling the blonde's neck. With one hand, Brittany stroked Santana's hair gently; the other was rubbing soft circles over the fingers of her casted hand. Even hurt, she was still the most beautiful person Brittany had ever seen. "It's not fair," she whispered into the top of Santana's head. "She didn't do anything to deserve this."

The silence returned. The only sound was that of Santana's heart monitor.

Mrs. Pierce checked her watch. "I've got to get going. Your sister has a soccer game in the morning. I'm not even going to attempt to get you to come with me—we both know what the outcome of that will be," she shot her daughter a smile as she stood. "I'll stop by tomorrow morning, okay?" Brittany nodded. "I love you, sweetie." She kissed her daughter and Santana on the forehead.

"Love you, mom." Brittany said. When the door shut, she turned her gaze to Santana once again. She could watch her best friend sleep for hours. Santana always looked so peaceful when she slept.

But something was different now. Her eyebrows were scrunched together and a frown was etched upon her face. Brittany could hear the heart monitor speed up. Santana tensed in Brittany's arms. "No, stop." She cried quietly.

_Shit, _Brittany thought. She shifted her body and grabbed both of Santana's hands. She needed to wake her up. "San, wake up," No response. "C'mon San, you've got to wake up." The sleeping girl began to squirm. She tried to pull her hands from Brittany's, but the blonde held on.

"No, let me go!" Santana exclaimed. "Please, don't!" Her head was thrashing back and forth on Brittany's shoulder. The beeping from the heart monitor had gotten significantly faster.

"San, it's okay. It's me—it's Brittany. Wake up. It's just a bad dream," Brittany tried to coax Santana back to consciousness. Still there was no response. "Baby, you've got to wake up." She said more forcefully.

Tears were dripping down Santana's face as she fought the attacker in her dreams. "Stop! Please don't hurt me! I'm sorry!" she cried.

Brittany was beginning to panic. "Sweetie, no one's going to hurt you. It's just a dream. Wake up."

Santana's eyes shot open, terrified. They swept across the room, trying to remember where she was. "Shh, it's okay. You're safe," Brittany cooed. The beeping was slowing down. "No one's going to hurt you."

Finally, Santana's eyes found Brittany's face. "God, Britt…" she choked out. Tears were still falling from her eyes. "He-he was…"

"I know, baby," Brittany comforted, pulling Santana closer. The brunette continued to cry into Brittany's neck. When the sobs finally reduced to small occasional hiccups, Santana pulled away to wipe her eyes.

"I've gotta stop fucking crying all the time," Santana half joked. "I'm gonna lose my badass status."

Brittany chuckled. "It's okay to cry, San."

"God, I'm so fucking pathetic!"

"You know that's not true. You're one of the strongest, most amazing people I know."

Santana shook her head. "I just feel so weak. I couldn't even protect myself. I couldn't do anything to stop him."

Brittany grabbed Santana's hands again. "San, stop. There was nothing you could have done. This _is not _your fault. Okay?"

Santana looked at her skeptically before nodding. "I just-I should have fought back harder. "You fought as hard as you could. And you're still here."

Santana buried her face into Brittany's neck again. _And you're still here._ "I'm sorry, Britt," she mumbled.

The blonde's face scrunched in confusion. "For what?" Santana didn't reply. She had already fallen asleep.

Brittany sighed and checked the time on her phone. 11:37. Eight hours. That's how long it took for Santana's life to do a 180. Brittany rubbed her eyes with her hand.

She felt her phone begin to vibrate next to her leg. Without looking at the name, Brittany pulled the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

_"Britt, I've got news."_ It was Quinn. She sounded serious and sullen.

"What's up?" She looked down at the sleeping girl in her arm. She pulled her arm from under Santana, placing her back onto the bed. After checking that her best friend hadn't woken up, she slipped out of the room into the hallway. Quinn was still talking. "Okay, sorry. Can you say that again?"

"_They caught Santana's dad."_

Brittany's breath caught in her throat. Disbelief clouded her mind. "Wait, you mean, like-huh?" she sputtered.

_"Puck beat the crap out of him in the park about an hour ago. The police showed up and arrested him_."

"Puck?" Brittany exclaimed, still trying to process the information. Everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion.

_"What? No! Santana's dad."_

"Oh," she paused. "How? It's only been, what? Three hours?"

"_I don't know. I guess it was just Puck's amazing timing." _

"Wow. Oh my god, Quinn. He's really gone now." She couldn't tell if she was overjoyed or relieved or a combination of the two.

"_Yeah_," Brittany could practically hear Quinn's smile through the phone. "_Puck's got a black eye, but he'll live." _She wasn't listening anymore. Santana was safe. Her dad wasn't coming back. _Ever. _

Brittany was close to tears. "Quinn, oh my god, thank you! I've got to tell San. Tell Puck thank you so much!" She hung up before Quinn had a chance to speak and leaned her back against the wall. Why she was crying, she didn't really know. It was probably for Santana. But she didn't know if they were tears of joy or sorrow.

Taking a deep breath, Brittany tried to stop her tears. She couldn't be crying when she told Santana. Finally, the tears subsided and she pushed the door open. Santana hadn't moved at all. The blonde kneeled next to the bed and pushed a locked of hair out of Santana's face. She looked so beautiful. It seemed a crime to wake her. "Sweetie, wake up," she cooed softly.

Santana stirred. "Whasswrong?" she murmured without opening her eyes.

Brittany laughed softly and brushed another lock of hair away. "I've gotta tell you something," Santana opened her eyes and lifted her head. She seemed intrigued by Brittany's words. "They caught your dad."

It felt like time stopped. The color drained from Santana's face. She could feel the blood rushing I her ears. She turned her head away from Brittany. _That's it?_ she thought._ It's that simple?_

"About an hour ago. Puck found him and the police came," Brittany studied Santana's emotionless face. "Sweetie, say something," she pleaded.

Santana didn't know what to say. What was she supposed to be feeling? Should she feel happy and relieved that the man who hurt her so badly was in jail? Should she feel scared because she no longer had a home? Should she feel angry because this shouldn't have happened in the first place? There's no hand book to how you're supposed to react to these things. _He's still my dad, _she thought. _But is he, though? What kind of father beats his only child?_ "I-I don't know what to say," She turned to face Brittany again. "I don't know what I feel. What _to feel_."

Brittany moved to sit in the chair beside the bed. She grabbed Santana's uninjured hand again, needing to feel a connection. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know…I think so," Santana answered. "Has, um, has my mom called or anything?" she asked quietly. She knew what the answer probably was, so she wasn't very hopeful. As soon as she asked the question, she regretted it. _Why would I ask a question I already know the answer to? Especially if I hate the answer?_

"San, I'm sorry. I haven't heard anything from her," It pained Brittany to say. She knew how much Santana missed her mom. "I'm sure she'll come back. She has to."

Santana shook her head. "No, she won't. If she was going to, she would have done it a long time ago. She doesn't care. It doesn't matter anyway. She's never coming back. Bitch can rot it hell for all I care. This is her fault." She didn't mean it, but she was just _so angry. _

"You don't mean that. And it does matter to you. I can tell. We'll find her and bring her back. I promise."

Santana scoffed. "You don't know that, Britt. She's probably long gone by now. Either way, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't talk to her anyway. She doesn't deserve it. She doesn't get to just leave and come back and act like everything is fine. It's not fair."

"Hey, look at me," Brittany said. Reluctantly, the brunette turned her head and looked at her best friend. "I won't let anyone else hurt you. They'll have to get through me _and _Lord T before they can get anywhere near you." She finished with a smile on her face.

Santana smiled. "Will you stay tonight?" she asked.

Brittany nodded. "Of course. I never even thought about leaving."

**What did you guys think? Well, I really hope you guys liked it. Review, favorite, follow, all that awesome stuff. Emails, emails, emails. I WANT SOME! yeah i don't even know. Oh, my url on tumblr is hypernarwhal . tumblr . com. Follow me! I'm funny (kinda, not really, but still)! You guys are awesome! Thanks for sticking around this long. I know I don't deserve you guys cuz I suck at updating at decent intervals. Thank you! Bye :D**


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